


Avengers: Home again

by EdwardEldritch



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Everyones here - Freeform, Irondad, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Tony Stark Lives, from the top, its peter, once again, someone else snaps, spiderson, spoiler - Freeform, this time with feeling
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-25
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-03-17 11:04:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18963973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EdwardEldritch/pseuds/EdwardEldritch
Summary: Infinity is a concept beyond the comprehension of most mortal minds. A number so large it can’t be counted. An expanse so vast it can’t be filled. But there are bigger infinities and smaller infinities. There are an infinite number of universes. There are an infinity number of outcomes for every situation. Ahead of us lie more infinite possibilities. Fewer than the infinity of a few seconds ago. Larger than the infinity a few seconds from now. One could never see them all. And sometimes, outside of the most likely, one of those rarer infinite possibilities happens. It seems the one we are on now is not one I foresaw. But we're past the point of no return. Lets see how this one plays out, shall we?





	1. The Rising

The sky was red. Red so flat it was like looking at a painted ceiling. It looked flat even as light and shadows drifted through the clouds. A darkness floated passed. Peter squinted against it. The sky was utterly unobscured.

His hand leapt to his left shoulder, gripping it, searching for the hand there, but he found only his suit beneath his fingers. “Tony?” he pulled himself up on a rocky ledge, sitting, sighing at the fading pressure of pain in his ribs.

His eyes darted around sluggishly, seeing only dirt and distant clouds of dust. The planet seemed to be empty. “ _Tony_?” His hands searched the empty ground beside him, hopelessly desperate. He moved from the ground to his knees and was on his feet in an instant, swaying with the speed of assent. He searched in front of him, and then behind. “ _Mr Stark_?” he called louder.

Something was approaching to his left. He turned to face it but still jumped when the masked _Starlord_ landed solidly on the rocks before him. He clumsily shuffled down onto the ground, Turing off his helmet as he slid towards the approaching boy.

“ _Kid_! You’re up!” he haltered his pistols and strolled up. He looked just a little bit too macho, and his posture was tight and tall. Peter was still taller than him.

“Ha- _Hey there_.” a half-hearted greeting and a half-hearted wave. “Have you seen _Tony_?” he sounded calm, but something shaking in his voice betrayed a deeper feeling. He turned on tired, stilted legs.

Quills face creased. “T-“ and then realisation washed over him. He played it off as an obvious blunder “Oh, of course, _Tony_. Haven’t seen him.” He shook it off. “Separate question, do you know if Tony can fly a _ship_ , by any chance?”

Peter was stuck by the question. He hesitated for several seconds, think it over. “n… no I don’t think so…” His mind was elsewhere, but there was no doubt, the answer seemed _so obvious_. Some part of him couldn’t be sure. _Iron-man could do anything, after all_. He glanced around again, like he was waiting for a friend on a corner, a friend that would appear any minute. The planet looked so different. _Was the sun rising now?_

Quill seemed displeased with his answer, pouting angrily and scratching his head. He scanned the horizon again. In irritation he proclaimed, “Well _someone_ _does_!”

Something like danger rattled in Peter’s head. There was no specific direction. There was just _danger_. He could have jumped the length of the Brooklyn bridge when Mantis appeared near them.

“Maybe it was the _Blue lady_.” Mantis suggested, hobbling over idly. A limp was set into her left leg, but she moved as if it had always been there.

“ _Nebula_?” Quill sighed, exasperated, gesticulating that it was _obvious_. The boy opposite him looked a little pale all of a sudden. He changed his tune quickly. “She wouldn’t… _right_? Guys?” he turned to confer with the group. Drax approached, daggers both drawn but relaxed by his sides. Peters mouth felt a little dry. Too many unfarmiliar people.

“Only a coward leaves his wounded friends behind.” Drax stated dryly. He didn’t sound angry, but he did sound disappointed. His grey skin was greatly obscured by a layer of soot and sand.

“Come on Drax, they wouldn’t have left us for _no_ reason. _Right kid_?” Trying to convince Drax of anything was a task he was not ready for right now so he skilfully, if indiscreetly, roped Peter into it too. Peter took the bait. “They must’ve… come up with a plan, or something…” he postulated very softly. They were just _somewhere else_. They’d regroup later. “ _Mr Stark must have had a plan_.”

“He doesn’t seem to be the best at plans.” Drax pointed out, straight faced. Quill almost interjected, ready to accept his part in their failure. He didn’t.

There was a long silence. Long and very awkward for Peter Quill. He moved to perch himself on an outcrop of broken masonry. “Ok, I’m going to…uhhh, scan for ships in the solar system.” Nodding to himself. He got no confirmation that it was a good idea. Or even that it was a bad idea. He had a sudden craving to hear something sharp and scathing about his conduct.

He engaged a device on his wrist. A shard of light spat from between a crack on the face of it. Quill shoved his wrist away just a second to late, and it caught him in the eye “Ach, _God_!” he hurriedly rubbed it from his face. Drax laughed. Mantis barely joined in. She was holding her side.

Something about her didn’t sit right. It made Peter’s brain tingle. It wasn’t bad but it wasn’t good. But Peter couldn’t help himself. “H-hey, _you alright_.”

“I am fine.” Her breathing was so small and quiet he could barely hear it. Peter tried to get a better look at her side. Something in his head told her she was looking at him. She wasn’t. He really didn’t like that. He pressed down his displeasure, and whatever movie reffrence his brain was trying to bring up. He crouched down in front of her, sliding his fingers under her arm, which was tight to her side. She didn’t move. He tried gently pulling at her elbow. Nothing. He stopped. He left one hand resting on her arm. She looked like she didn’t know he was there. Her antenna moved in the wind, like flower stems.

Something was still pressing on Peter’s chest. He gently took her hand in his. Now she was looking at him. Her eyes weren’t black, not like he thought they were. They were deep. A lens inside kept light from toughing the back of them. He could see the colour of its rim, floating in her sclera. A cold feeling wriggled down his throat and landed in his stomach.

“… _It’s ok_.” He rubbed her arm with his thumb. There was no sound when she blinked. Her head tipped and she curiously observed his actions. The grip on his fingers was returned.

Her antenna probed the air around his head. He could feel each one moving as well as he could see them. It was like having bugs floating around him. Stinging bugs. Ones that buzzed maliciously. He tried a smile, to cover his fear. She mirrored him with a similarly strained, closed mouth smile. They both stopped as Peter again pulled at her arm. They both watched carefully. The movements were slow.

Finally, he got a look at her side. There was no blood. Or at least, none he could see. Her chest flexed as she breathed in deeply. If there was something to be done for it, he was incapable of doing it. He pretended not to be disappointed in himself. Nodding, as though satisfied with his analysis, he let her arm return to its place. But his hand stayed on hers.

Movement in his peripherals caught his attention. A hand lifted slowly to his head, speed never changing, and it extended one finger. Instinct made Peter swerve carefully out of the way, but it pressed on. It pointed towards his face, approaching. Like a spider hiding from a predator, too far from its web, Peter didn’t move. Carefully, Mantis wiped away a bead of sweat that had been threatening to drip over his eyebrow. And then her hand returned swiftly to her side.

“… _Thank you_.” He said, extremely quietly, to fill the quiet. He had ment it to be louder.

Mantis leaned in very close, still holding peter’s fingers like they were the bow of a violin. “ _Why are you so scared?_ ” she whispered harshly. She sounded sweet, or she would have. Something was still not right. Peter hoped it was just him.

“I’m not scared.” He tried to convince himself. He realised now her grip on his hand was quite tight.

“… _Yes you are_.” She whispered again, correcting him simply.

“ ** _What are you whispering about!?_** ” Drax bellowed across the vast distance of 5 meters between them. Both Peter’s jumped. One exclaimed something in annoyance.

“Drax, the little _boy_ is _scared_.” Mantis answered for them both. A very motherly tenderness had set into her voice. For Peter it was like being tended to by one of his teachers. The two aliens seemed to have a different view of the situation. “ ** _What are you scared of little boy_?!**” Asked Drax, not losing any volume.

“I’m _ok_ , really!” Peter called back, but not quite as loud. He couldn’t quite pull off nonchalant, not as well as Tony. Drax didn’t buy it. Or at least he didn’t drop the idea that was forming in his head as he plodded over. “Is it _Thanos_?” Mantis asked, whispering in his ear as if she was asking a little child about a nightmare. The tone distressed Peter more than the sentiment. He let it show on his face.

“I knew it… _He’s still here_ …” Drax’s eyes darted suspiciously. He bowed his stance, tightening his muscles with anticipation.

“No, Drax –… _Drax_!” Peter tried, but it was too late. Drax had already run off, with a mighty battle cry of “ ** _THANOOOOOOS_**!” Quill just watched him go. Again, Peter was to slow to do anything.

The battle-crazed shouting was softened as Drax disappeared, but it was still there. It might have been funny, but right now it just reminded Peter how tired he was. Mantis suddenly let go of his hand, looking off at the ground beside her. Her deep black eyes no longer made his skin crawl, he realised. She sat there, blinking just a little too often.

So the group let itself disperse. Peter fell silent and sat himself not far from everyone else. He felt so heavy. Like he was falling asleep. Something about _gravitational disturbance_ crossed his mind in a blur. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted something _red_ and _blue_. Not out of sight, but not within conversational range, hovered the mysterious wizard _he and Tony_ had failed to rescue. He was casting one spell after another, opening portals, peering through and then closing them again. Peter eased himself to a stand and hobbled over delicately. The closer he got, the more he felt like he was intruding on something private.

“ _Mr Strange_?” he tried quietly, stepping closer inch by inch. Even so, Strange was still almost inaccessible, high off the ground.

“Doctor.” Strange corrected without looking away.

“ _Doctor_ …” He started again. “What… are you doing?” he fumbled for what to say. It sounded like small talk. Peter winced at his choice of words.

“I need to know what’s happened… so I can know if we stand a chance.”  Stephen’s cape hung dead still from his shoulders. There wasn’t the slightest hint of a breeze. Even Strange’s shifting shoulders didn’t move it.

“… _What’s happened?_ ” Peter parroted. alarm pulled at his senses again, worsened by confusion. “ _How long was I out_?” He wheezed. Strange said nothing. He just kept his eyes on his work. A cold silence.

“Where’s _Mr Stark_? A-and... and _Nebula_?” Peter asked, Tone firm, yet his voice still wobbled. He swallowed meekly. He could feel sand in his mouth.

Strange stopped. Not just signing out his spells, he stopped moving. He dropped to the ground gracefully, taking a moment to admire the sky. Or something beyond it.

He turned, finding peters eyes. “We’ve been _gone_ for _five years_.” Something like quiet too hold. The quiet of distant winds whipping through the shells of ships. The quiet of a young man trying to find his voice, which was suddenly sinking out of reach. Somewhere, far away, Drax was still screaming.

“ _Five years_?” Peter felt like his tongue was being pulled down his throat. Something took hold of his sides and squeezed. His voice rang so innocent. It pulled at something in Strange’s head. He nodded in confirmation. “In this situation… That’s a good thing…”

An expression almost like anger formed on Peter’s face, but he didn’t have the heart to give it a voice. “It means there’s hope. _For everyone_.” Reassurance didn’t look very good on Strange. He was far better at breaking bad news. It felt like bad news.

Peter remembered the feeling, in the back of his mind. The feeling of magic. Tony could mock all he wanted but it was real. He could _feel_ it. The tearing of the portals. The pounding of the shields. The endless twirling of a loop, rolling and spinning at the same time. _Fourteen million six hundred and five._

Peter would remember seeing them in the distance. Strange, Tony... Thanos. He’d seen them fighting while he tried to keep the guardians from being crushed. He’d seen it and felt it when Tony took a knife to the stomach. He had swung toward the fighting, even as the battlefield itself drifted away. By the time he’d arrived, it was over. Thanos was _gone_. Tony looked _tired_. Strange didn’t say a word. They didn’t say how they had lost. Only one thing was obvious. _They had lost_.

“so… so you know _whats going to happen_?” Tony had _trusted_ Strange. Necessity of not, they’d worked as a team. And Tony had _trusted_ him. But that didn’t come to Peters mind so much as appear as an afterthought. Because, he realised, he trusted Strange too.

“I know some of the possibilities…Yes.” Strange replied. There was a measure of hesitance in his words. Peter’s mind went to May, immediately. And Ned. His school. His city. MJ. But something else pressed to the front of his mind. A recent urgency was renewed, crawling into his chest again.

“Is _Mr Stark_ going to be _ok_?” The absence was still weighing on him. The absence of something falling appart in your arms. The feeling welled up from his heart first and spread. He couldn’t remember clearly where it came from. Yet it was such a _clear_ feeling. There were so many other people in peril, but his mind could only put a name to one.

Strange looked at him. He really looked at him. For a very long moment. Peter felt cold. His heart was beating thoughtlessly. The fight was over for them, but...

“Sir, _please._ ”

Strange didn’t even blink. Then he did. Consumed by something in his head he looked away. When he looked back, he stared pointedly into Peter’s eyes.

“Stark’s fate is out of his hands.” was his answer. It was almost too soft. Too understanding. Peter felt something turn under his ribcage. He tensed his jaw, lips parted, searching for the words to ask if he was sure.

He pulled his lips tightly closed, then spoke. “Where is he _now_?”

Quill, who had leapt down from his perch, carried by his jetpacks, landed heavily nearby and strolled over. “Yeah, and wheres Nebula? …. And _my ship_ , while we’re at it!” He chimed in. Strange looked like he wanted to roll his eyes but refrained. “On earth. I’ll take you all there, but first I have work to do.”

He stepped towards Peter, whos eyes were still pleading for more answers. Despite everything else, in that moment, he looked so small. “ _I’d appreciate some help_.” came Strange’s quiet request.

Peter hesitated to respond. “…Okay.” Quiet but firm.

So, Stephen began casting a spell. Several spells. Golden lights and warmth filled the dusty air. Fresh air pushed through the staleness of Titans atmosphere, like water poured over a field of dry grass. As more and more portals opened, he pointed to each and dictated what to say to those beyond them. Once or twice he added “ _Say nothing else_.” though it was never _Peter_ on the receiving end. They were all told to _make ready, there was a fight coming_. And one after another they jumped to follow the call.

Something started heating up in Peter’s chest, burning more with each new addition. Looking at the hundreds of faces, wet with tears but not sadness. This feeling didn’t have a name. it was like confidence, but with strokes of fear. Doubt covered by hope, buried by it.

He desided this feeling was _Victory_. It hardly occurred to him that this was the prelude to something else. He could even forget about their _recent loss_. Confidence swelled through the growing ranks of their allies. In the excitement, I was easy to forget.

The game wasn’t over yet.


	2. And the players take their places.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Infinity shrinks, and yet it stays the same. The path we are on begins to diverge. Chance is not a mistress I often put faith in, and yet she hold all the cards.

 

It would never be familiar. The turning of sparks, opening onto a distant place. Strange had given them all a signal. A timer almost. The number of seconds they had to prepair. Peter could picture him mouthing it now. It was ticking away in the back of his own mind too. There was an inevitability about it. But, right now, he had another task he was committed to. He jumped between rises, swinging from the decaying ships and husks of buildings. He watched the surroundings fall away then rise up again. Swathes of red dusted rocks slid past him. The shadows there were running out of places to hide.

Coordinating the final preparations meant Strange’s mind and eyes were elsewhere, so Peter had been set to watching their backs. Off towards the rising sun, Starlord’s jetpack roared as he did the same.

It hadn't been long. A few minutes at most. There was urgency, and yet there wasn’t. The sullen mourning for their recent, or _not so recent loss_ had been swept away, pushed aside by unseen events. Then the sky had been filled with a thousand voices, crying out. Warriors filing into ranks, familiarly unique but unmet heros rallied to fight. Strange hadn’t said what it was they would fight. But they would all fight regardless. The stakes were clear. They kept Peter’s attention sharp even as he patrolled silently, alone. Although he wasn’t _entirely alone_.

Next to his ear, a farmiliar sound. “ _It’s time to go, Peter_.” A female voice urged gently.

“Thanks Karen.” He said between breaths, working his arms to control his path through the air, circling the beams of a metal craft en route to the others. Pulling them into view with swing after swing, the portal was already open. He wasn’t first across the threshold, but he propelled himself across it as far as he dared, over Quills head, with Drax and Mantis on his right.

It was earth. The air and the blue sky. The earth itself had been torn to pieces. Earth and stone had been flung. Patches of dirt still smouldered. Columns of smoke rose. Craters and gouges, the dirt was littered with slag and scrap.  Whatever had stood here before was nothing but a pit now. The sky was filled with dark clouds. Behind them, a black shape hovered. Across the carnage, dissecting the line of green and blue on the horizon beyond the scoured ground and the darkened clouds, great triangles made of dark metal had embedded themselves. The scale of them was familiar. A skyscraper was comparable in size. The thought of that made Peter’s stomach drop. The _height_ of them. From their slowly opening maws tumbled a writhing mass of bodies.

Nervousness and excitement swamped any fear. _This was the real deal_. The kind of mission he had wanted so badly just a few months… or years ago. Something to throw himself at. _Something to prove himself_. But all he could think about right now was far closer to him than the matter at hand.

More figures grouped up. A battle cry echoed around him. Sinking low ahead of the curve of the amassing forces, to his left and right were hundreds, thousands of people. Some conjured magic, others primed weapons. Very near were farmiliar faces. Ones he remembered from his childhood. _He couldn’t see Mr Stark from here_. But he could see _Thor, oh Wow, he was so much bigger in person_.

The thundering sounds of the crowds and the lightning amplified. The sky cleared slowly as the wind pulled at the clouds and light flooded the field before them. The smell the wind whipped towards him was worst of all. Like a freshly turned field, and the smell of campfires that were burning out. He remembered the time he and Ben and May had taken a trip out of the city. It was such an unassuming smell. The line of blue on the horizon started to grow.

Like a song building towards the chorus, movement began seeping over the scene. From all sides. Rimmed with light. One or two figures went first. Then, _everyone else_. They ran in, and so did he. He leaped over head, catching up and surpassing the frontline. He looked down at the thousand figures. Their eyes were all fixed forward. At the head of the charge was _Captain America_. Peter didn’t get a good look before shots began flying their way. Everything was tiny from where he was, vaulting over the battlefield.

Soon the field was crawling with noise. Footsteps and war cries, screaming and roaring, engines and energy weapons.  With nothing but crumbling ruins scattering the battleground, Peter had no choice but to leap from point to point. Every now and then he could catch hold of a passing ship with his webs and would end up dragged in unpredictable directions.

There was a constant swirling of movement, ships and bullets flying past and overhead. He felt them come and go, darting between or over and under. They made his skin _tingle_. It was chaos. Everywhere he turned something shot past. All around, allies followed the same path, trying to carve through the carnage. So many marvellous figures appeared and vanished as Peter dashed onwards. He jumped passed some, others went shooting ahead of him. He barely had time to focus on the enemy. He struck them were he could, hard and fast, rushing off before they could swing back. For every target he picked another made an attempt on his life. He wasn’t sure if he finished half of them off. He was at least sure he pinned all of them down. The _thwip_ of his web shooters was near constant.

Every new sound caught his attention. His mind was pulled in every direction at once. Aggressive shouting and hollering caught his ear. The barking of a machine gun and a plasma pistol. He caught a glimpse of a farmiliar metal arm. The _soldier_ from Germany was fighting right on the frontlines and he was standing next to a _Raccoon with a gun_! The giant guy there too, he was hard to miss. Peter felt bad the few times he used his arm as an anchor-point for a swing. There was a _woman with wings_ buzzing around near him, but he blinked, and she _vanished in an instant_. Someone flew overhead on a _winged horse. Those were real??_

Every new person peter saw, he reminded himself to greet later, when this was all over. Or perhaps _as soon as possible_. The thought made him hum with excitement. The pounding of explosives in the background was like a deep drumbeat that rattled his exoskeleton.

Then, under everything else, bellow any human sence, something plucked as the visceral arachnidan centres of his brain. Something farmiliar rang in his head. Beneath the whirring of cannons and the shockwaves they caused. Under the warnings of danger from tremors in the ground, there was something farmiliar. A buzzing of just the right pitch. Soft and constant but not grating. High but not shrieking. It made a soft blue light spring to mind.

Soaring through the sky, like a jet, Colonel Rhodes’ dark suit was lit up with bright red. Something patriotic stirred in Peters heart. He called out and received a curt greeting in return, slurred by the sounds of battle. When the colonel glanced over, he sent a hasty salute, between one swing and the next, and had one sent back, sharp and crisp. The air rippled around him as he jetted off, swinging low as his guns blazed.

A new suit, _beautifully blue_ , danced around the field too. His heads-up display read _Miss Potts?!_ She darted off before he could hail her, with more grace than Tony could ever have managed.

Winding across the field, something in his memories tugged at him. Spinning as he swung, he searched for something he recognised. Something he had glimpsed in the corner of his eye. Amidst the brown and black, red and gold. He leapt towards it, landing and jumping. The force making his bones tremble. In that moment, all stress and fear evaporated from his body. A heavy relief settled in his chest, beating along with his eager heart.

“ _Holy cow_!”

 

* * *

 

Once, the compound had been like home. It was a little run down, but well loved. An old friend sat amidst a lush field of grass. Now the only green left where it once stood was Dr Bruce Banner.

The battle had started. Everyone had charged in, forging into battle. When they had, Bruce had charged too. But _as fast as he could run_ was slower than usual. He fell behind. And yet he had still managed to edge ahead of the bulk of the forces. He had also managed to find some of the slavering aliens that were pouring across what had been the pinnacle of heroism in a world left behind. This made Bruce very angry. He made a point of letting this be known. But at the back of his mind, he was still able to be glad that _At least he was wearing a shirt this time._

Bright figures streaked passed him. Fighting one armed, He endeavoured to do as much damage as the rest of them. Yet when a one of the mystic warriors became trapped under the corpse of an alien brute, he took the time to free them. The, very gratefully, ran off as soon as they were free. He could only shrug and rush off too, in his own direction.

He found himself near the middle of the fighting. At least, it felt like the middle. There was carnage as far as they eye could see. Everywhere he looked there were groups fighting. One would invariably tear its way through the other. A detachment of Chitauri, snarling like beasts, lunged at him in a similar fashion. It was like being mauled by cats. _Declawed cats_. Their _biting_ still hurt though.

The swarming monsters kept pouring out of the cracks, leaping for his unguarded parts. Cracking one’s head open, it oozed with purple ichor. He gagged and tossed it away. The way they were moving, focusing his right side. They were seeking the stones. Bruce briefly wondered if the Hulk had ever had something, he needed to share but couldn’t because it lacked a radio… and common sence. He spat some alien blood from his face and muttered “ _Please don’t let this be important.”_ through gritted teeth. _Surely_ everyone would realise what _Thanos’s dogs_ wanted to fetch for him.

The thought slipped away from him as more of them sniffed out what he no longer had.

Sound began growing on his right. Another hoard. More than he could count in a moment. They tussled with each other in a race to get to him first. They banked around a wall, what was left of one. One which was being held up by stubbornness and a few strands of rebar. Quickly laying his hand on as big a rock as he could lift, he tossed it at the metal bars. It punched through them like a bullet through paper, and the wall collapsed. Gravity seemed to ripple along it, the falling concrete catching up to the front of the snarling mongrels just before it reached safety. The dust settled, and the scene fell still.

The flow of enemy’s ebbed. Still, the hot feeling of vigilance stayed with him, but he let himself slow down. A moment to breath. A moment to let the aching in his right arm subside. It stayed, trickling down every scar in his tissue.

To his left, something small and fast came towards him. It was red and shiny, and It rolled as it landed. It then stumbled into a jog, before jumping into the face of an attacking Chitauri. It bounced from one to another, tying them down with some kind of white rope. It didn’t slow down as it approached him. In retrospect it was probably pointless to _yell_ at it. It yelled back and jumped sideways behind a chunk of rubble.  

“ _Wait wait_ , I’m on _your side_!” It called and lifted its hands up to shield its big white eyes. It was a young man that spoke. Bruce didn’t claim to be an expert on aliens, but he was pretty sure they didn’t sound like they had hopped straight off a bus from New York.

“Sorry.” Bruce half-heartedly pleaded, looking down on the still cowering figure. He was more gangly than the heros the avengers usually took in. The kid looked tiny, but everyone looked tiny now. Bruce reminded himself this guy was probably taller than Tony. Maybe it was _Tony_ who was _tiny_. More than that, he was wearing nano-technology, if he wasn’t mistaken. It had a cute little spider on the chest. Speak of the devil, that had _Tony_ written all over it.

“Hi, _hey_ , I’m Peter Parker! You’re-” The kid started, ecstatic, climbing over of the remnants of a Chitauri onto a ledge of crumbling rock. Even kneeling on a rubble 5 feet high, this _Peter_ still had to look up.

“Yeah, I know…” Bruce replied, shoving off one of the brutish Chitauri with one hand. he wiped a speck of its blood from of his lips, and grimaced. He wasn’t in the mood for fans right now.

“It’s an honour to _meet_ you, Dr Banner!” Peter leaned over, hunkered into a spidery crouch, holding himself in place with one hand, shooting something sticky from his wrist into the gnashing teeth of the enemy with the other. Bruce tried to keep a smile to himself and failed. Ok, _he was always in the mood for fans_. Politeness overpowered tiredness.

“ _You think this could wait_? I mean, _its nice to meet you too_ , but we’ve kinda got a _thing goin’ on here_!” He yelled, still smiling, as another pair of screaming animals rambled towards them through the arena’s debris. One beast was caught in his hulking hand, as he struggled to fend off another with his elbow, yelping when it got in a bite on his bicep. The young man behind him vaulted over his shoulder, shoving the scrambling creature off with a kick. Bruce ended the other with a headbutt that cracked its skull.

“ _Are you ok_ , _sir_!?” Peter asked and offered up his hands when the hulk stumbled. The boy’s fingers could barely have touched around one of his own.

“Yeah, I’m _ok_.” Bruce took a breath and nodded to his left arm, checking himself just to be sure. “It didn’t even _draw blood_ , _see_?” he tried to stay positive. Not that he felt positive. Hopelessness was bogging him down again. _It often did_. But something in the young voice beside him parted the cloud of trouble that was shadowing him. He mustered another smile.

Peters masked face wasn’t turned up to his. It wasn’t turned to his left arm. It was turned to his right. To the black scales of charred skin, stuck together with boiled remnants of green blood.

Banner lurched, re-finding his footing for a moment and Peter caught his oversized green hand in both his own. The metal hood that crowned his head sunk back into his shoulders, and a young man was revealed. His brown hair bounced as it was freed. His eyes were glazed over with a coat of fear and worry.

“W-W… _what_ …” He began but Banner sighed and, waiting for an explanation, Peter let his voice fade off.

“The gauntlet…” Banner started listlessly.

“ _Thanos’_ gauntlet?!” The words shot from Peter’s mouth, propelled by a sick feeling of concern which punched him in the gut. His eye flared wide open. _The feeling of tough skin and metal under his fingers, slipping even as he tried to stick to it_. He strained to meet Bruce’s eyes.

“No no, _our_ gauntlet… it couldn’t channel most of the power so it…” Everything around Bruce, the wounds and the noise, was catching up with him. He felt like he was being split open, front to back, along the length of his spine. He wavered as it hit. He knocked a loose rock absently from the wreckage behind him and leaning back against it. Resting his legs while the stars in his vision stopped shooting. “so it… channelled it into _me_.” He stopped. Considered himself lucky. He wanted the boiling pain to make him mad, but all it did was remind him how _scared_ he was. “Anyone else probably would’ve _died_ …” He looked as though someone had died, and it had been his fault. A ship swung low over their heads, rocketing off towards the dropships over the rise. The spider ducked as it came in. The hulk didn’t even flinch. It kicked up dust which whipped around them.

It didn’t get far. Something flew from the ground beneath and cracked it open. It dissipated into a cloud of fire. Several bodies flew from the falling wreckage.

Peter put a hand on Bruce’s arm, the other oddly holding his palm. His stomach started churning. _Where was the gauntlet now? Where was Thanos?_ Most importantly _, where was Tony?_ These thoughts pulled his mind back to the rest of the fight, away from this small corner of it. He remembered that sliver of red and gold vanish into the distance. Towards the lightning at the heart of the battle.

“Sir? I _gotta_ _go_.” He said, a lull in the violence letting his quiet voice through. He faltered in his retreat towards the front, taking only a step back. “ _Are you going to be ok_?” Peter asked, sincerely filled with worry. A little spider with a tender soul. It made Bruce's heart sting.

“Yeah… yeah, I think I will… _go_ , _I’ll be all right_.” He nodded his head loosely, careful of the roasted skin of his neck, not able to look back. The red shape lingered in his peripheral vision. It hesitated for a moment, observing.

“Ok… Be _careful_ sir.” Peter leapt away, stopping from a nearby vantage to look back.  He nearly went back to Bruce’s side when a few shots pounded the ground near him. Again, the Hulk didn’t move. The vicious thumping in his chest suddenly came into his conscious thoughts. He shook it away and jumped without thinking. His body urged him to _move._

Not far away, Bruce worked up the courage to watch Peter go. He watched as the boy caught hold of a ship inbound for the front. Like a snowflake in a storm, he really did look tiny as he joined the rest of the chaos. Bruce stayed sat for a moment, even as a squad of Chitauri approached his flank. He shook away his cloud of melancholy gently then, one handed, tossed part of a building into the ranks of the approaching enemy.

It flew like it was made to. Effortlessly. Weakness was gnawing gently at his muscles. _How long could he keep this up for?_ He had never really needed to fight like the Hulk before. Big and green or not, he was still the brains first and the brawn second. _How many hours had the Hulk fought for without stopping?_ That strength felt absent. “How did you _keep this up buddy_?” he asked himself. There was a vague tenderness about it.

A thought came up which might have been his own. _Smash_.


	3. The fall

He had the gauntlet. Peter had the gauntlet. He had plucked it from the paws of the Panther from Germany, zipping off, pulled by a ship. _He was getting the hang of this_ , he thought, nearly letting the jewel encrusted glove slip from his hand.

It was light, like his own armour. That wasn’t it though. There was more than weight about it. Maybe it was the way everything in the immediate area turned on him like they were insects and he was covered in honey.  His senses blazed, a blocks wide fire alarm screaming in his head. There was no noise, but the ringing was there. It made his skull vibrate and his eardrums flex. He could feel it behind his eyes. _Run_ , his brain told him, not telling him _where too._

When he ran out of things to swing from, and his feet hit the soft, upturned earth he felt the pounding of a thousand paws, all imminently heading for him. The rocks around him churned with limbs, obscuring true forms. They snarled and screamed, growing louder, flailing more wildly. He saw no more routes to escape by.

“Activate _instant kill_!” he asked with polite firmness.

There was a distance between him and them. They sounded so far away. Muffled. Even the feeling of it became dull. The more time that passed, the less he could move. The less he could hear. The scratching and digging. _The sounds of distant rocks falling, sound masked by cloth and the remnants of a collapsing building_.

The swarm pulled him into its heart. There was no room and no time to escape. It took all the climbing he could do to keep the growing pile of corpses from swallowing him. His feet would be pulled under, trapped by a fallen enemy. He would struggle, hands and knees. Pulling himself free. Scrambling to climb up. And then again. And again. The crowd was endless, pouring in from beyond his sight. Like wearing a rubber glove and then putting your hand in boiling water. There was pain but less than there should have been. All the time his suit wheeled its limbs wildly, striking hearts and brains and _other things._ He felt the teeth and the hands grasping and felt them let go when the life was struck from the bodies which wielded them. His breath was constricted to tight panting. It was like anxiety had wrapped him up in its coils, squeezing all the sence out of him. He tried and failed to keep his eyes on everything. He was snow-blind with the flailing of limbs and alien forms.

Specks of colour sparked passed, beyond the blur of darkness. Deep black, purple, blue, white, red, silver, all flashing across the scene, all too far to reach. He assured himself he was fine _. You’ve got this. You’ve got this._

He didn’t have it.

His call for help was swiftly answered. He barley heard who it was over the pounding in his head. Time seemed to accelerate. Moving faster than he was thinking, catching hold of _Thor’s hammer_. He was free and then he was flying. Pulled along behind it, straight as an arrow. 

Then, he felt like he was moving in many directions at once. His attention would cut out for a second and he would be somewhere else. he felt like he was remembering things that hadn't happened yet. _Reverse déjà vu_. He alternated between free-falling and flight.

Other avengers soared in to back him up. He tried to be polite. Even though his stomach felt like it was inside a washing machine. However, his help only went so far. he quickly found himself inbound for a long fall and a hard landing.

 

~

 

Peter hit the ground so hard he felt the air rattling inside his lungs. He rolled with the impact, bouncing along beside the battered metal gauntlet. Before they could both come to a stop, he was already grappling to catch it. He clambered to keep up. It tolled hollowly as it tumbled away like a faraway church bell. In the distance, the gentle rattle of thunder.

It started raining. Small points of light flickering into columns of noise and heat. They pinned him in from every side. The ground shook.

There were no words to describe it. It was like he was stuck in a box made of speakers, all playing the wailing of the innocent, full blast. The pulsing lights were so bright each knocked his vision away, turning it white then black before it returned. The ground was shaking like the earth was caving in towards the core. It was the worst feeling he had ever been stuck in. It was like listening to May _the day uncle Ben had died_. The distant shots hitting the ground were like _listening to her cry through the wall of his bedroom_. Each flash of noise was like a screaming bolt through the heart. His nerves were alight. His skin, his muscles, the membrane on the inside of his eyes. He held the gauntlet tight. Cradling it like the soft toy May had gotten him when he had been little. _So little he had been in his parent’s house_.

Then, faster than it had started, the Rain stopped. Rays of bright light shone down, warm, cutting down past banks of scattering dust. Peter stayed where he was. Curled up. A smaller target. He listened. All he could hear were the sound of his breaths. Two or three per second Rattling the side of his mask, Filtering straight into his ears.

Pushing past the sound, a soft humming began. It faded in from nothing. Pushing through the intermittent noise of his breathing. It was sound but it was also a feeling. One _only_ he could feel. The lowly shaking of the air. It was like the sensation of subway trains moving underfoot.

He strained to look up, through aching eyes. Someone stood between him and the cowering sun, and yet there was still light. They were a silhouette at best, in Peters eyes. his muscles, still tense from trembling, stayed tight. He didn’t feel any danger. Not from the stranger above him, anyway. Plus, they looked a little too _not punching him yet_ to be a bad guy.

“ _H-hey_ , I’m _Peter Parker_.” He stammered, cheek pressed hard against the gauntlet in his arms. He could feel the power of the stones struggling through it. It made bright colours arc through his sight. Above, the woman smiled down at him. Or he thought she did. His eyes were watering, and he could barely open them. His vision was rose-tinted.

“Hey _Peter Parker_.” She said softly, as if all was well. Her voice was the nicest he had heard in at least several minutes. Husky but soothing. “ _You got something for me_?”

The twisting nervousness and stress in his guts unwound as he sat up. Standing was hard, but he did it. He turned to their target, which was apparently an _ugly brown van_. He knew _roughly_ where it was. A thousand sets of teeth and ravenous eyes stood between them and it. He needed no spidey-sense to feel the danger. But as the shaking from the rain started to fade from his head it warned him anyway. His legs wobbled. He felt like he was going to throw up.

“… _I don’t know how youre going to get it through all of that_ …” He wheezed and quickly handed over his precious package. The foul feelings were mitigated slightly as more allies _finally_ grouped up to him. Another woman with flaming hair, who made the edges of his mind tingle landed near them. “ _Don’t worry_.” She soothed.

A warrior whos dark skin gleamed as if lit by warm sunlight stepped forward. “She’s got help.” She proclaimed, standing there firmly, poised to meet the enemy.

Peter watched as even more fighters found themselves in front of him. Their swarming opponents drew ever closer. As they did, Miss Potts landed between him and them. A protective feeling blanketed him. Slowly they moved off, and it felt to Peter like being woken up early. His gut told him to find a _nice tight hole, fill it with webs and hide there_.

Glancing over, the stones glinted, as if his eyes were highlighting them. His vision was sharp, but this was something else. In the distance he could _see_ _something else_. It was so far away he wasn’t sure if the blur of colour had been an illusion. Or a premonition. But his senses were beyond sight. Other indications told him what it was. There was nothing else it could be. This whine of _impending doom._

 _Thanos_.

The group that had formed pushed forward, all backs to him. He watched them, filling steadily with an uncomfortable worry. A fear that was fighting his feigning strength. The indominable will of a determined opponent. The inevitable power to push through any obstacle. _A hand around his throat_.

“W-Wait…” he warned weakly. He stepped and stumbled. Few of these faces were farmiliar. Fewer he knew had even _seen_ Thanos before. They and the Titan were all headed in the same direction. But none of these women had even the slightest hint of hesitation.

There was nothing to slow them down. The swathes of enemies that lay ahead fell appart before them. They all accelerated, reaching a sprint in seconds. Behind, Peter could barely hold a jog. He lagged even as his vision tried to keep up. The group split up, left and right, carving a path. In unison they moved to back up the woman at their head who, breaking away from gravity, seemed to burst into flames. The gauntlet under her arm glowed from the heat.

Running had never been so difficult. It was like trying to run on water in the middle of a stormy sea. His ankles buckled now and then, making his path wobble even more.

Rounds of fire were shooting low overhead. He had to duck and dodge even at ground level, weaving through patchy cover. He brought up his mask again, a shield from the spray of debris. It was all he could do to keep himself from crawling along on his belly like an eel. He caught himself after every misstep, convinced that if he fell now, he _would not get up_.

The ships wheeling overhead were fewer, but the air was still thick with laser-fire rippling through it. Peter alternated between watching the sky for stray shots and watching the ground to keep his footing. When he finaly looked ahead again, his path was empty of allies. They had dissipated into his peripherals and then entirely from sight. But something in his chest told him to keep going. _This way_. He followed the feeling. Swerving out of the path of it to avoid packs of enemies, only to urgently find his way back to it. The field was far clearer and scattered thoroughly with corpses. He kept himself from looking at them.

Something dead ahead caught his eyes. A flash of red light. An explosion over the rim of a crater. He hopped up it, landing at the summit on hands and feet like a dog. He arrived in time to see their enemy reaching for his victory. The woman he had entrusted the glove to was thrown like a ragdoll. The corona around her faltered as she hit the ground. _The glimmer of the stones_. The gauntlet was left alone in the dirt.

He moved without thinking, throwing himself over the cliff he was crouched atop. He slid down it on his ass, scrambling to slow himself down. He tensed his face as dirt and rocks flew into it, even as his mask kept them out of his eyes.

Through the haze and the dust, the glare of his lenses and the water and redness in his eyes, something bright shone through. Something _bright and blue_. He turned into the slope, digging his arms into it. He wrestled with the sliding stones and soil to hold himself in place.

Only one person standing against Thanos now. It was Tony. _Just Tony_.

Peter watched him charging in again. He watched him receive a hard punch to the face. He _felt_ it. The need for calm appeared in him suddenly. He let a moment pass. Breathing it in. Then he bounded on, no hesitation, or even consideration weighed his tired body down. His heart pounded, steeled and as much a part of the fight as either of those titans. The crumbling earth gave way under him as his continued downward. Riding with the flow of it he kept himself from being eaten by the dirt. He skidded to a halt at the bottom of the slope, twisting over to crawl forward on hands and knees.

Thanos came into focus as he drew closer. A Slab of purple and dark blue. His features of his face became clearer by the inch, did what he was scrambling for. A feeling a twinge of urgency in his gut, Peter shot for it, webs gliding bellows a grasping purple fist. The titan turned as his prize was hauled away, eyes and nostrils flaring.

The gauntlet hit Peter’s chest. He let the impact take him down as a shard of debris flew over his head. He felt the air leave him, lungs too tired to hold it. His legs lost feeling, burning with needles. His back spasmed, barely keeping him up.

With Thanos’ attention distracted, this created an opportunity. Mr Stark, still fighting even as his suit sparked and complained, took advantage of it. He charged in and grappled with Thanos’ neck from behind.

The two figures vibrated hazily. The details of the struggle were all but lost to Peter’s eyes. At the very limits of his hearing, there was someone calling to him. It was drowned out by a great yell of rage. A surge of movement on the edge of Peters vision. The light of Tony’s arc reactor disappeared. But Thanos was still there.

Peter didn’t look back. The blur of those eyes was enough. He clawed himself up, loosing footing on the dry earth.

 _Distance and height_. He jumped as high as he could, as far as he could. And again. He made to leap a third time, over the ridge he had climbed so quickly. His overdriven senses felt it coming, but he was too slow to dodge the rock that flew to his location. It hit his leg, mid step. He tumbled.

He slammed into the ground, landing on the gauntlet, ramming it into his gut. He felt his ribs trembling.

He hurriedly stood, pushing up off the gauntlet on an aching wrist. He scrabbled, feet clumsily loosing purchase, sending rocks tumbling down the ridge. Upward, another stone flew. It connected with his jaw. Again, he collapsed forward. Again, his stomach landed against the glove. Stars wheeled in his eyes. His insides turned. The world seemed to invert. He held onto the gauntlet. Fingers finding what groove they could and sticking there. As if it would fall into the sky if he let go.

The figures bellow him began to dart around. Flickers of light shot across the darkening scene. Peter shook his head, but they didn’t come into focus. Faintly in his head, he heard _Where’s the gauntlet?_ The voice was so faint, like a memory of the words.

“ _I have it!_ ” He shouted. Desperately, he crawled, Legs and arm, still holding the stones close. “ _Anyone! I have it!_ ” His right foot slipped down the cliff as he tried to stand again. Barely, he kept from toppling down it. “ _What do I do?!_ ”

Somewhere, in the back of his mind, or rattling through his earpiece, he heard; _Hold your Position. Bring it to me. Take cover. Retreat. Peter. Fall back. Stand up._ It made his brain ache. He dropped his metal hood. A strong wind immediately hit him in the face. The field wafted with the smell of charcoal.

Without the heads-up display, everything became dark. Shapes lost even more deffinition. The silhouettes darting past had no labels. He closed his eyes. Deep breaths. No more stepping. He crouched low and leapt, diving forward. Rolling behind a ledge of stone. Another projectile shot over head as he did.

“ _Peter_!” he heard from behind. A desperate shout.

He dared a half glance over his cover, but saw nothing. A scrap of sky and a sliver of earth. “ _Sir!_ ” He called.

Another ship swung past, so close he felt the heat from the engines on his face. He strained against his failing muscles to shield his face in time. The noise of it made his head spin. In his head, he could hear _Tony_. Some memory dredged up. Playing out of his control. _“Definitely don’t wanna mess with this guy, we just want the gauntlet.”_

Thanos was _unbeatable_ with it. He’d levelled a planet with _a wave of the hand_. Apparently, he was also unbeatable _without it_. Peter looked down at the _copy_ he held in his arms. The tarnished, burnt and blackened metal, a dying shade of red. The colour of it nearly blended into his own suit. The stones were so bright they left flashing dots in his eyes.

 _Thanos wouldn’t go down_. _They couldn’t beat him_. _Even if they did, then what?_

Behind his back he could feel the fighting. The dancing of danger, spiders fighting across a delicate web. He recalled the first time they had fought him. It hadn’t been a fight. It had been like challenging a _wall_. _Kicking hard and feeling nothing give._ Then, the danger was pointed away from him. Heart purring, he forced himself to stand and turn. Hoisting the gauntlet up with him.

The shapes stayed blurred, rocking back and forth. The way the largest figure stood above the others made his stomach writhe with panic. His legs wouldn’t move to carry him closer. They locked, setting him there, standing above what was about to be carnage. His hands started moving on their own. Then, fiercely, he _willed_ them on.

“ _I have a really bad idea!”_

It came over him in a wave. Making him jump. His jaw tightened with defiance. He moved as if he had been set on fire. Moving to accomplish something before he burned out.

He jammed his hand into the gauntlet. Urgently he wiggled his fingers. He stretched them appart, trying to find the right places. His hand bounced off the inside of the palm, which was blindingly hot. Like a jolt of electricity, it made his hand clench shut. The heat blossomed down his wrist, the metal turned red then white in the blink of an eye.

The creeping pressure, deeper than his body. It was a swarm of bugs crawling up his arm… gnawing at every atom, like burning without the heat, without the fire. _Like turning to dust all over again_. Turing to ash, drifting away on the wind. He couldn’t tell if he was still here of if he was falling appart. Every moment it seemed to alternate, and it burned. Six barbed pins forced into his hand, melting his flesh and sticking there, sticking to the bone. A hand wrapped around his wrist. A metal hand, grinding at his tissue, pulling at his joints. _A spider bite on the side of his hand, the grip of tiny legs on his skin and the ache which rushed down his veins, through his heart, to the back of his eyes_.

Out of his control he cried out, shocked with the pain as though he hadn’t been expecting this to happen. He sobbed and found his breathing was not enough to fill him with oxygen. The burning was stealing it all from him.

The world became little more than colour. His heart pounded harder. _Panic_ , it told him. The brown, muted earth was a backdrop to smears of purple and red. Tony’s head locked within the palm of the Titan.

His mind moved. So did his hand. Thoughts racing, falling behind. He could still _hear_ them. Somewhere else, he heard his name. Pressing his fingers together. The feeling was fading. In the back of his head, buried, Starlord mimed an explanation. _Who thanos was. What he wanted_. The words were lost. Superimposed over the twisting shades, he watched Quill lift his hand.

 

 

_He snapped his fingers._

 

 

The brightness caught his eyes more than anything else. A flash, slow enough that he could see it crawling towards him from the horizon, but so fast it reached him before he could blink. His eyes wouldn’t close. The air compressed into a disk. Razor sharp. Condensed shattering. Deafening.

To Peter, the sound was almost normal. Like he had clapped his hands in the gymnasium at school and nothing more. The all-encompassing white that raced out from his hand smothered all his senses. Even his ever-present arachnid vigilance was engulfed by it. _There was no fighting anymore_ , it assured. _It’s over now._ He found himself stood on a field of white. As if he had been drawn onto a page.

Then, as if he’d never left, he was back, standing on the battlefield, looking out over a peaceful view. Around him, smoke billowed. Columns of darkness rose straight into the growing heavens. The sky was appearing from behind the clouds. It fell away as he watched it.

He fell, left hand searching for a handhold but finding none. The sky went up and the ground rose to meet him, he went head over heels down the embankment. Time after time, he landed and then kept falling. _He barely felt it_. His face caught on a stone and he couldn’t flinch. His mind felt like it was spinning in the opposite direction.

Peter’s scorched side caught on a chunk of rubble and he came to a halt, face up, half buried in loose dirt and dust. His eyes were filled with shards of rock. The air was sharp and dark, solid grey _. For a moment_. A soft breeze passed by, wiping the sky back into view. A film covered his eyes, and it danced with white shapes, like water drops on the windshield of a speeding car. A light snow of stars drifted through his vision too. As if transfixed, he could look nowhere. Only up. A beat of pain from his teeth, down his larynx. He couldn’t hear. _What was there to hear_?

 

_Nothing._

_Humming inside the ears._

_Dust tumbling over dust._

_Blood, trickling._

_The whining of motors._

_The hum of repulsors._

 

“ _Pete_.” A voice. Urgent. Losing its measure. “ _Pete, talk to me_.” Breathing, panting. “Come on kid, you’re ok. _You’re alright_ , I’ve got you. _Come on_.” Something hissed. An icy cool drifted over his neck and down his side. The burning was cooled. Relief.

He felt a hand on his shoulder. It pressed too hard. Quickly it was pressed under his back. Someone spoke again. Soft and nearby. “ _Peter_.”

He searched for something to look at, some indication of a face, but it was all so lost in a haze. Colours and shapes. For a moment he thought he _should have brought his glasses_. Moving in fine increments, his left hand quested out for something to touch. His knuckles bumped into the metal of a chest plate. Fumbling he found a place his fingers could grip onto. They settled there, knuckles ice cold while his palm and fingers thawed. Beneath his hand was a buzzing and a warmth, a cold blue light. To his left, a different kind of buzz, like his right arm was cold and hot at the same time, but with no numbness. Each prickle of energy and every twitch of his muscles he could feel. He opened his mouth. his throat felt dry. As if it had been stripped down to the bone.

“ _Mr Stark_?”

“ _I’m here kid_.” He spoke in hurried tones. In his blurring, turning vision, Peter caught the whites of Tony’s eyes.

 “ _I messed up, Sir_ ” He tried a smile, but it didn’t seem to fit on his face. It was too small. The pain began materialising again. Burning so intense it was as if he had been feeling it his whole life. A pain he had never been without.

“No no, you did fine. _You did a good job_ , Peter.” Such a soothing tone was strange. It suited Tony well. He shifted his arm, lifting Peter further from the dirt.

“I _messed up_.” tears welled in his eyes and a sob caught in his mouth. He took a sharp breath, sending a shooting cold down his charred side.

Tony shushed him, cradling his torso as delicately as armour could allow. The sweat soaked hair was brushed from his face, and Peter was allowed to revel in the cool breeze on his forehead.

More people arrived. People he recognised and others he couldn’t. Peter felt like he was _interrupting something important_.

Something heavy landed nearby, blackened iron and red. _Colonel Rhodes_.

“ _What happened_?” A deep voice, tired. Something heavy, metal, buried itself in the ground beside him. _Thor_.

Someone darted towards them, over a rise in the rubble, skidding to a halt. They removed something from their head, and let it fall. _Captain Rogers_.

 “ _Oh god._ ” Heavy footsteps, slow and unsure. Something big moved into his peripherals. _Dr Banner_.

Strawberry blond locks blurred into view, very close, so clean and crisp while everything else was smeared with blood and dirt. _Miss Potts_.

“ _Hey_ kid.” She sounded so collected. And so worried at the same time. He said nothing in return. He breathed and smiled. So did she.

Off in the distance, swimming in the dust, up in the sky, something red and blue. He could feel _Doctor Strange_ watching him from there. _Out of his hands_. Above him, Tony went quiet. Peters eyes still searched for him, lost in the distortion. In the stillness, someone close wept. He could feel it. Under his palm.

The world started losing meaning and density. But his mind was still circling it. Trying to make sence of the people around him. What they could be thinking. Tony’s arm was trembling under his back. He could sort of feel the people around him. The sensations kept bouncing around. But it was all _fading_.

~

Still cradling Peter, Tony’s knees kept slipping where they were balanced on the shifting rubble beneath them. His left hand was holding Peter’s head, careful not to press the blackened skin on his face. His right hand was buried in the dirt under Peter’s back, pulling him off the rocks and debris. The kid’s eyes appeared from behind shifting lids.

“ _Hey_ …” Peter spoke almost under his breath, his voice fading beyond his control. “ _Hey_ , it’s _ok,_ Sir…” He gripped tighter where his hand held Tony’s armour, tucking his fingers over it.

“… _T’s not your fault_ …” He hoped Tony would believe him. Gentle fingers stroked circles in his hair.

 “ _Karen_?” Pepper asked, one hand holding Tony’s shoulder. His armour was still warm from an energy blast, the scorch mark still glowing. She could feel the heat through her gauntlet.

Peters battered suit growled, its damaged speakers squeaking before a voice came through the noise. “ _It’s not good…_ ” was the response, damp with pragmatism and tears.

Tony took a helpless gasp. His head bowed so low he could feel the edge of his chest piece against his chin, and Peter’s fingers where they rested there. He leaned down further, forehead coming to rest against the blackened dirt. Peters ragged breathing filled his ear. Slow but consistent.

“Stark…” Steve tried, taking one step towards them and no more. He breathed hard against the pain in his sides. It was distracting him from pain in the rest of his body. He bowed his head. He had nothing else to say. More metal footsteps. A blur of red light. Pepper turned to look. Rhodey was at a loss too. Sadness fell like silence over the group. Behind them all, a streak of light darted out of the rubble, gliding like the sun, gently overhead.

Karen’s static started again. “ _but if we hurry… he might make it.”_

Tony lurched up, looking around absently, mouth open, waiting for his brain to catch up. “ _Shit_!”

His foot slid as he turned on his side. He dug it into the soft dirt so he wouldn’t slip, holding himself where he was holding Peter. he violently scanned the amassed group. Many alarmed faces looked back.

“ _Strange_!” he yelled, taking Peppers hand as she held onto him, trying to instil calmness. He didn’t have a chance to call twice. Steven appeared, falling gently from the sky like a soap bubble on the wind.

Tony withheld his distress at the casual speed of his entrance. “There isn’t a hospital in the contry that can treat him like this.” Strange coolly assessed the damage, expression only tinted with guilt. He brushed it away in an instant “…but.” His cape fluttered as he looked over his shoulder.

Someone else moved within the surrounding group. Suit still glowing purple with stored energy yet to be spent, T’challa stepped forward from where he stood beside his general and his sister. “We can take him to Wakanda.” There was no pride in his voice. Only boldness and hope.

“The medical technology there is better than anywhere else on the planet!” Shuri added urgently, striding to her brothers’ side. One of her blasters was cracked. She abandoned both and began sending a signal from a bead-like device on her wrist. Strange looked between them, then back to Tony. Stark was already wrapping Peter in his own armour, a brace and a stretcher in one.

“Go.” He ordered, and Stephen complied. Steve Rogers appeared at Pepper’s side; hands outstretched. Pepper stood aside as he and Tony lifted the boy. He whimpered as they jostled him, and Tony winced as if the pain was his own.

Before they could rush him off, Pepper took up his right arm as one might handle a bouquet of thorned roses. Nebula, still shaking, strode over to help prise off the disintegrating glove. It had shrunk, the mechanisms for changing its size warped and bent against their will to fit Peters smaller hand. He winced as they pulled at it. The stones, barely held by the melted metal, were pulsing with light. With a hard tug, it came free. Shards of metal broke off and danced down the slope.

Nebula didn’t hold the gauntlet. She just let it rest in her arms. It shook in her hands. Rhodey approached slowly, placing a hand on her back. Her body was rattling.

“What do _we do with it_?” Bruce asked with genuine worry. He presented no solutions, finding only confusion in his mind. Okoye stepped up quickly, the light of the portal strange had summoned making her skin glow warmly. It also glinted off her spear, catching on its sharp point. “I can have a secure location arranged. It _cannot leave our sight_.”

Rhodey nodded in agreement. Nebula stood like a statue. She startled when he took her shoulders. “It’s _ok_.” He whispered into her ear, pushing her gently as Okoye offered to lead the way. She spun her spear, catching it so it sat comfortably in the crook of her arm. She took the lead, guiding the way towards the shining light.

As many stepped forward, only a few stepped back.

“Go. Its ok.” Pepper softly urged, staying behind. She pushed Tony gently, steering him on. He stumbled forward, with nothing but his armour and Steve’s arm and desperation keeping him up.

“Wait, what do we do now?!” Scot Lang materialised, the air around him warping as he did. Beside him, the Wasp appeared too. He got no answer. “ _Guys_?”

~

The darkness clouding Peters vision was softly illuminated. Figures appeared and disappeared from sight. He and the gauntlet where cradled by them, at least two pairs of hands to each. A group of them moved, in pieces, through the ark of a portal. The sparks tickled his senses. Everything vanished as they passed. The dust and smoke and the smell of the dead and dying. The melted metal and the blood and damp earth. Like walking through a veil, the smell of dry grass and the heat of the sun replaced it all. What remained was the sound. The muted voices, the footsteps. From somewhere far away, _cheering_.

“Sam! Gather everyone you can find, start on _search and rescue_!” Colonel Rhodes yelled, taking up command. It was the last thing Peter heard as the Portal closed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was the first one I started and its still a little thin in places. I couldn't remember some parts from the movie well enough to write down, hence the first gap. hope no one minds.


	4. It's all that we can do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We're on the other side now. Anything could happen. There's only one thing i know for sure. A doctor has a duty of care. I've got work to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mild descriptions of surgery. Please be aware.

_Birnin Zana. The golden city. The capital of the contry of Wakanda_.

The hot sun was shining down on a truly joyous day. The dead had returned. As had the king. The world was once again whole. But there were no celebrations. There was no cheering or great gatherings of people, finaly reunited with those long gone. The streets of the golden city were nearly empty. Their king had warned them, _they were at war_. For those who had left, the fighting had never ended. So, his people took refuge. Families huddled in their homes, overflowing with a myriad of emotions.

Warriors returned to the battlefield sprinted towards the city, ready to join the defences. All prepared to begin the fight again, should T’challa and his allies fail to stop Thanos a second time.

Through the streets they ran, between buildings, counting heads and soothing worries. All joined the tasks of the city guard. For the protection of the people.

It was onto this still and shining city that a portal opened. One by one, more fighters poured through.

The princess, Shuri, stormed through first. Still sending messages, she was transfixed by the output of her kimoyo beads.

T’challa followed, looking forward, but also looking back. the rest followed behind him, stepping less readily.

Steve’s eyes stayed on a swivel. The buildings were familiar, their location wasn’t. He stayed close to the others, holding formation.

Nebula stared down, empty eyes flickering across lines in the pavement and rocks and small cracks.

Bruce stumbled through at the rear, insisting on going. He cradled his arm close, ducking through the portal.

Okoye escorted him through, monitoring their backs, still ready to fight. She kept her spear in a tight grip.

In the middle, Tony was watching Peter.

Peter was watching the clouds.

Dust and specks of rubble tumbled through the portal on a stray gust of wind as it spiralled shut. everything seemed to pass as if it was all far away. Words were few. Movement was great. It was quiet action and loud stillness.

Within the group, all eyes were on each other. There was no need for them to stumble around looking for the hospital. Strange had dropped them on the front door.

A squad of Dora-milaje, well armoured and bold faced, marched out of a nearby building. They jogged in perfect unison, their spears swinging with their strides. They filed into ranks before their king. The hearty stomp they give, lined up before him, shook the tiles beneath their feet. Okoye, tall and bold, strode to stand beside them, turning on her heals and joining them in standing to attention. The orders T’challa gave came in regal voice. One he mustered without thinking. He too was standing straight and tall. The commands were clear. _Protect the gauntlet._

All eyes turned to the outsiders, who were huddling around a medical trolley. At the back of the group stood the one they all focused on. Blue skin and metal plates shone in the sun. T’challa approached her alone, calling for his guards to stand down when the swing into offensive stances.

Nebula did move. She didn’t say a thing. She just stood there, breathing. She still held the gauntlet, passively. You could almost hear the gears grinding in her head.

The Wakandan king stepped up to her, skirting around the others. He kept his focus on her sharp, attention fixed. Before he was close enough to touch her, she snapped around to face him. Her head whipped from a relaxed position so quickly that her neck creaked.

He raised an arm, offering an air of peace to her. “I will take the gauntlet.” he announced, softly, calmly. More attention than Nebula’s turned to him. Ware of the stares, he shared a few looks, exchanged cautions glances. “I would ask that you come with us and help us _secure it_.” He then finished.

There was a moment where Nebula froze. Nearly vibrating, she shook her head. She pressed her fingers into the glove and pulled it closer. Her relaxed lips pulled together.

“ _I’m keeping it with me_.” The full stop was almost audible. She looked back to the others. Eyes jittering, she found Tony. He was near. Or she had put herself near him. _It didn’t matter_.

His eyes kept darting around, but mostly they stayed on the boy. He was still practically cradling him, despite the fact he had been laid out on a trolley. Despite being so distracted, he spared her a glance, evidence she was on his mind, and held her eyes when he found her looking. He gave her a deep look. Pain passed over his face. The pain of _not being able to go with her this time_. She nodded, not needing words. He put his hand on her shoulder, squeezed, and then gave her a push. She went with it, taking delicate steps away.

“Come.” T’Challa beckoned, not taking the gauntlet, but offering her his arm. As she approached, he tucked her under it and they moved off in quick strides. T’challa found his sister among those tending to Peter. She was buzzing around the centre of attention. Forced himself not to look back when he finaly tore himself away. Beside him, Nebula looked back only once, before they both disappeared.

 

~

 

Taking the lead, Shuri pushed the group to keep together. She moved them off, all in step with each other. With a half-free hand she mapped a path through the maze of the hospital, the shortest path. Somewhere out of sight, _someone was arranging a room for them_ , she assured.

Crossing out of the scalding sunlight in to the cool and breezy building, they all stalled together.

“Wait, hold on, this way is faster!” She called. The sudden stop shook a gasp from the surface of the trolley, and the assembled group winced collectively. It took a tight turn at a standstill, aiming down a different corridor. As the gurney hovered away, Tony disappeared behind it. Standing near, Steve dove to catch him. He almost succeeded.

“ _Stark_!” They both landed on their knees. The metal of Tony’s armour clattered against the hard tiles.

“I’m fine.” He supplied with the last of the oxygen in his lungs. He coughed, shifting something dry from his throat. He wiped his forehead with the back of his metal gauntlet, clearing a smear of dust away.

Shuri, who had stopped at the noise, turned back. Her eyes went wide and almost rolled. “Take him down there.” She pointed back down the hall, slowly steering the gurney away as more people collected around it. There was no _time for this_.

Steve put one arm around Tony’s chest, the other taking his arm, and pulling at him. They both stood. The captain put Tony’s arm around his neck, lifting and leading him towards a pair of nurses who were waiting to take him. He was forced to stop as the man in his arms pulled in the opposite direction.

“ _Tony_.” Steve urged impatiently. He grappled with him, not letting Tony push him off. His resistance was weak but purposeful.

“ _I’m alright_.” He wheezed. He wasn’t looking at Steve. He wasn’t looking at anything. Whatever he was looking at was not in focus. His breathing was truncated and accelerating.

It briefly crossed Steve’s mind that _he couldn’t fight Tony at a time like this_. The thought was too _aggressive_. He made himself force it down. Tony was pulling at the straps around his shoulder in an attempt to push him off.

With a sharp thought, he tapped the reactor at the centre of Tony’s chest, catching him in both arms as his suit retracted into it. The microscopic components folded into each other’s arms as they slunk back across Tony’s body. The rippling weakness made him easier to handle. Steve was able to get a better hold of him. He caught Tony’s wrist in a firm hand as he went for the Nano-tech, aiming to regain his borrowed strength. They stood there in a very strange, formidable hug, Tony not able to move for Steve’s arms, Steve not about to let go even for a moment. A laughable impasse. Steve considered his options for solving it.

Catching something in the corner of his eye, he lifted Tony’s arms, opening up his chest. It was small and fast and running along the floor. Scot, unshrinking before them, peeled the reactor from Tony’s shirt. Tony made to grab it back, but Scot took a step back. His attempt was easily thwarted.

He held it up and away as he made another, pathetic swipe for it. “Sorry, it’s for your own good.” Scot summarised curtly, aware the interaction was probably _above his paygrade_. He lowered the device as Tony abandoned paying attention to him. He turned to Steve, not even able to stand up straight. Usually able to look into his eyes, at this moment he was barley holding his head above the Captain’s pecks.

“… _Please_.” He faintly begged. As if Scot wasn’t there. He fixed his eyes on Steve. It was unlike him. Eye contact _like this_ wasn’t something Tony did. Unless he was angry. _Or desperate_.

Steve looked him deep in the eyes. The intense misery there was so alien. But he couldn’t relent. He responded as firmly as he dared to.

“He’s in good hands Tony. And _you need to be too_.” His gaze didn’t waver. But Tony’s did. He gave in. looking along the walls of the hallway. Slowly, he let himself be handed over. It was _for his own good_. Still he’d be damned if he didn’t draw it out just to spite Cap. The nurses took him quickly, one on each arm. He didn’t struggle. He didn’t look back over his shoulder as the lead him to a gurney. The speed they moved him with made him stumble. Even that didn’t slow them down.

Scot watched from the side. In his hands he awkwardly cupped the glowing arc reactor. Steve turned back to him and gave him a curt nod, accepting it from him.

“ _Thanks Scot_.” He sounded as sturdy as ever, but also tired. _So tired_. He regarded the device, not sure if it would fit in his pocket.

“No problem Cap. _Happy to help_.” Scot replied. He forced some confidence into his voice, but he sounded like he was talking for the sake of it. He cut himself off for his _own_ sake. Cap gave him a firm pat on the shoulder. He gripped there for a long second, the expression on his face moving oddly. He looked comically serious, but there was nothing to joke about.

“I better keep an eye on him.” He nodded back over his shoulder. His eyes flickered away from Scot, onto the kid down the hall. He managed to stuff the Nano-tech into a pouch on his belt. It stuck out a little.

“Yeah, of course.” Scot replied, needlessly, straining to follow Cap’s gaze, looking over his shoulder. 

Steve was walking off before Scot looked back. He felt rude, but his body hurt. He felt like if he stopped too long or even turned around his muscles would set and his joints would seize up. He felt like if he didn’t keep pace he’d sink into the ground. Walking felt too slow, so he pulled himself into a march. The pain was still present, but its rhythm was familiar. He caught up quickly.

The miserable expression on Tony’s face had relaxed into something more hopeless. Two nurses, and a doctor, were attempting to apply a syringe to his arm. He waved them away, but they were insistent. They had only managed to cut open the sleeve of his shirt. His skin was speckled with bruises and raw, red veins.

Watching this, a helpless feeling of worry rolled into his gut. It was familiar, and made Bucky came to mind. The feeling sunk deeper, playing off the thought of his oldest, dearest friend. He wanted to look for him. He wanted to know _that he was here_. But he couldn’t. _Now wasn’t the time_. Wherever Bucky was, he was where he needed to be. And this time he was safe. That much was beyond all doubt.

He swallowed some foul pride that had made its way into his brain and took Tony’s hand. He interlocked their fingers, pressing their palms together. Tony didn’t try to pull his hand free. He was looking at the tiles of the sealing as they swayed overhead. He flexed his digits weakly.

“ _It’s ok_ Tony.” Steve soothed, holding tighter. He rubbed the back of Tony’s hand with his thumb, adding his other hand to the grip.

Tony sighed. Then he gave up, presenting his arm to the nurses. One approached with a medical device. Its advanced appearance was almost alien. The handle was sleek, muted chrome, inset with lights and likely vibranium. The needle was wide and sharp, and hollow, the edges were thinner than paper. He squirmed as they stuck him with it, into the blue veins of his bare arm. They were sticking out as if they had been painted on.

“ _You’re terrible_.” Tony slurred. He blinked, hard, once or twice. Something was draining from the metal device in him, mingling eith his blood and changing its colour. His fingers were slack between Steve’s tense ones. They shifted occasionally but made no feeble attempt to escape.

“That I am.” Steve replied, not straying so much as an inch from his friends’ side. He didn’t look down at him again. nor did he turn to look back down the hall. He just kept his eyes fixed straight ahead and marched on.

~

By the time Scot looked back, making his suit squeak, Steve already had his back to him. He was storming away at some pace. Needless to say, Scot felt a little abashed. It left him standing alone in the hallway. _America’s ass_ , he thought, watching him leave. He strode along, not so much as shifting even as Doctors buzzed around him.

The ant looked back and forth as both trolleys moved in opposite directions. There was no rattling of wheels. They floated along with the faintest hum. The sounds of shuffling feet and medical jargon breaking through the quiet.

Self-conscious and embarrassed, not wanting to follow and look like a fool, he turned awkwardly. The look on Tony’s face had felt to familiar. He could feel himself looking for Cassie’s name on the list of the dead all over again. The rough and raw urge to help battled his primal instinct to _stay out of the way_. It won out when he remembered how he’d parted with Hope. He’d assured her he was going to help. _He was going to help_. But how?

A large, green figure appearing in the hall gave him the beginnings of what _could end up being an idea_. He just needed a _bigger brain_.

 

~

 

There was far more haste around Peter’s mangled body. People flitted in and away, exchanging orders and equipment. Shuri remained at the forefront of it all. They hurried down a hallway crowned by tall, curved windows that let in the sun. It’s intensity and heat were subdued but still rich. Blue and gold scales shimmered within the glass, where the light hit its curves and corners.

She pulled off layers of body armour and tossed them aside, all the while keeping up with the convoy’s constant movement. She gave commands and orientation to the situation. All from Peters side. All while struggling to keep a loose braid behind her ear. It hung drastically out of place, shaken loose by the fighting. She looked ready to cut it off.

Strange hovered close by. He stalked beside the gurney, watching every action closely. Patiently, assessing but not intervening, He waited for a moment to step in. The staff here all worked with such speed and precision. Still, he caught one before they started prodding in the wrong place. _A syringe just a touch too low_.

After escorting the outsiders inside and deeper through the hospital, Shuri darted off, calling a nurse to her. They exchanged quick words. Before retreating into another room in a hurry she twisted back, pointing down the hall. “Take him down there, third door on the right.” Her directions sent them off down another hallway, this one smaller. There were no windows, but it was lined with panels. The sunlight faded into an electric glow. There were few doors, all inset into the wall 3 feet. They were tall and wide, and the upper outer corners had been cropped off.

Lagging behind, lingering in the real light, a great, green silhouette almost wrapped around the entire troupe. Bruce hauled his loping, limping self to a stop, hoping the spinning in his head would slow. Noises of all kinds had started ringing out, all around. _Fighting and resisting_ , in a different context. The moment of peace they had had, hadn’t lasted nearly long enough. It was already fading from his short-term memory. The chaos in the hallway relative peace in comparison to before, however. Bruce let his eyes wander around the bustling hall. The convoy was moving away ahead of him. Scanning the hidden horizon he double-took a good look at Scot who was now standing next to him.

“H-Hey Scot… what are you doing here?” Bruce quizzed, tone unintentionally sceptical.

Scot didn’t look up. He did start shuffling his feet though.

“Ah, I kinda, _got caught up in the moment_.” Was his genuine answer. He shrugged and fiddled with his fingers. Idling for a second, his hands then jumped to his head. He pulled of his helmet, with little grace, blinking in the bright light of the hospital. When he had adjusted, found the will to see again, he looked up at Bruce and he asked, “Is there _anything_ I can do?”

He was still wearing his remarkable shrinking suit, Bruce noticed. His helmet, now tucked in the crook of his arm, dripped with purple blood. Down his face, a line of red. His expression was a little hazy, but he seemed unfazed.

Bruce looked down at him. Then he looked up the hall, at the train of nurses they were following. Then he looked back down it, to where Tony and Steve had disappeared around a corner. _Those two could take care of themselves_. He supposed that solved one of their problems. Though if history was to be trusted it might cause others very shortly. But there was nothing he or Scot could do about that. _There was nothing they could really do about any of this_ , he realised.

“I don’t…” He trailed off. His head dropped and his vision rolled to his own charred arm. Then his eyes rolled over to Scot again. He was breathing deeply, but not hard.

Quantum mechanisms rushed across Bruce’s mind. So did the patterns of damage both he and Peter had been subjected to. He predicted that paths of the arcing energy. The way the forces would distribute. Vibrating particles, tearing through cells. Theoreticaly it was familiar. If it was familiar, he could fix it, _if he could just figure it all out_.

Medicine was a rabbit hole he’d only ventured shallowly into. Enough to help people, for the purpose of keeping his cover and paying bills. _His time on the run_. It had only just been enough to get by. Knowledge of tropical diseases and first aid. It was physics he knew like the back of his hand. _Maybe he could use it._

“Come with me.” Bruce commanded, voice dropping low. He pushed Scot along with him, marching after the group. A seriousness fixed on him, in his eyes which pointed straight ahead.

Scot let himself be led. He had to trot to keep from falling under the Hulks great stride. “ _What am I doing?_ ” He asked, not confused but compliant. Slightly scared. He was practicaly skipping on air as the hands holding him did most of the heavy lifting. He clutched his helmet close, like a basketball.

They both glanced to their left as Shuri sprinted past. A tight, grey cap covered her head. A roll of scrubs was tucked under her arm. She slowed as she caught up with the team of nurses as they pushed into the operating theatre. Strange fell into step beside her.

“I’ll be helping out in there, if you don’t mind.” He stated, calmly. Rather than looking at the hologram at the head of their patients’ bed, he was watching his body. His quaking breaths and general twitching. He was conscious. Physical conscious, if nothing else. Peering through the lens of his astral sight, he watched the energies and blood flow through Peter. He watched them flow as unbroken lines through his body. Watched how they all became tangled and broken when they reached his right arm. He scowled.

Shuri barley spared him a courteous glance as he addressed her. “ _Are you a doctor?_ ” She quizzed harshly. Her hands were busy pulling on her scrubs. Her eyes were watching closely the readings, not so much as flickering onto Peter.

“M.D. and Ph.D, I’ve been a neurosurgeon for over ten years.” He kept it quick and concise. And remarkably polite. This wasn’t his hospital. He found himself having to force a calm. The act itself amplified his stress. The fear of prepping for surgery had been one he’d lost long ago. Yet here it was, rearing up again. Like he was still a grad student in his first years of practice.

Shuri considered his qualifications, distracted by monitoring Peters waning condition. _They needed to operate_. _They needed to clear arteries. Mend tissue. Remove debris._ She didn’t know what they would find when they got in there, but they didn’t have time to look at other options.

“Well, _that’ll have to do_.” She pulled her scrubs over her head, tugging them down gracelessly before heading in. Bruce and Scot caught up as she did. They looked like a pair of worried parents, with Tall Bruce cupping Scot’s delicate shoulders.

While other doctors rushed into surgery, to clean up and get started, Strange halted. He brought his hands up, rotating his wrist, contorting his fingers. The faintest auras, the hint of lime green, and the dirt and dust shook off from his body, vanishing, leaving behind a freshness in the air. He locked eyes with Bruce for a moment. Then he winked, breaking his own fear and unknowingly some of Banners. Without a word he followed the princess.

A regretful determination melted into Bruce’s steeled expression. He tightened his hand where it sat on Scots shoulder. The ant gasped and looked up as the pressure on him doubled. He drove them both on. “Alright, come on, I’ll explain.” Caught under his arm, Scot wiggled somewhat uselessly. “Come on!” Bruce urged, and jostled him. They peeled off from the group.

The pair briskly approached a nurse who was idling nervously. Like the others, his dark skin was mostly obscured by grey Scrubs and a face mask. A few locks of black hair where shaken loose and his unhidden eyes went wide as he was shaded by a foreign green form. He backed into the gurney, while Bruce smiled pleasantly.

“Excuse me? Where are the decontamination units?” Bruce asked softly, with strange familiarity. There was an urgent point, across the hall. A glass wall danced with water drops. He thanked them politely. Scot yelped as he was thrown through the door, under the hot streams of water. He yelled as the water stopped, and the room flooded with steam instead.

 

~

 

Peter was already laid out on the operating table by the time Bruce made it into the observation room for the theatre. He was stood behind a wall of glass which cupped half of the operating theatre. Other people flittered around here. No one Bruce knew. He waved awkwardly and introduced himself.

Observing the group as it stood now, the level of activity had been reduced. The number of hands working on Peter was fewer. Their energy had been condensed. Each pair worked faster than before, all working individual tasks.

His suit had been removed, the infinitesimal pieces of it either pulling back or crumbling off. Beneath it was another one. Bruce noticed, this one had another, even smaller spider on the chest. It made his heart squeeze and his insides drop. _It looked almost like he was wearing pijamas_.

His view of the boy was obscured by Strange, who was now fully invested in helping. His cloak hovered ominously in the corner. It mimicked a nurse when he jumped away from it, mistaking it for a person then realising his mistake. It kept swivelling to ‘Face’ Stephen as best it could. Not wielding any tools, only wielding advice, its master was hyper focused.

“There are major perforations along his Brachial and Radial artery’s. You need to maintain blood flow. Get a him an IV, put it _here_.” He pointed, with two fingers, not touching the skin. Beside him, Shuri didn’t move. She stared at him incredulously.

Seeing no response, Strange looked up from his work. A flicker of old annoyance crossed him. Then he calmed. “ _Trust me_.”

She tightened her expression, then slowly did as he asked. She took her time, carefully adjusting the angle of injection. Another doctor stood behind her, monitoring but not interfering. They exchanged a look with Strange as her work was flawlessly completed.

She turned back to the displays. Several seconds, and a few red lights disappeared. Strange was already guiding another of the nurses to solve some other issue.

“How did you do that?” She asked, locking onto his eyes. He shot her a smile, which melted into concentration as he dove into another task.

“I’ll explain later.” He mumbled, jaw tight as he gently twisted Peters arm, allowing access to the underside of it. Several gloved hands worked to wash the dirt from it. Another assistant approached Shuri with a set of tools. This time she leapt to take them, moving where she could be of use.

Bruce, from behind the wall of glass, alternated between motion and focus. First he would duck and peer, straining to see. Then he was watching the outputs of Peter’s vitals though a glass tablet. It was small in his hand. “Watch his cephalic vein. It’s ruptured about a third of the way up, and it’ll be shedding endothelial cells, or maybe worse.” He advised. He struggled to swipe through the readouts with his thumb.

Shuri nodded, referencing a diagram which was highlighted for her. Quickly she moved, diving tools first into the wound. Stephen caught them inches from their target. They hummed in his hands.

“What are you doing!” She yelped but retracted the tools further still.

“Theres too much residual charge from the stones. The vibranium in those will only amplify it. You’ll only make the damage worse.” Stephen calmly assessed, being delicate in everything but the conversation. The focus dragged him towards nostalgic professional rudeness. He kept his eyes moving, scanning for emergencies, but sparing her frequent looks.

She took a step back. “…Right…” tiredness came over her voice. She glanced around the room, looking almost lost. As if she was scanning for a familiar face and finding none. Finaly she locked her eyes onto something along the wall. “ _Ok_ _then_.” Marking to it, she slammed open a drawer, pulling it out of its perfect alignment, and shuffled around in it.

She returned to the table moments later. Two fistfuls of pre-packaged, steel tools clattered onto the worktop beside it. Forceps, needless, both hypodermic and suture, scalpels, scissors, at least 3 of each. From the pocket of her scrubs she produced a bottle of ethanol. It clattered beside the rest, nearly falling as she turned out her other pockets. Before Strange could raise an eyebrow, she looked pointedly at the closest, empty handed nurse. “ _Find something better_.” They nodded and rushed from the room.

Holding out his hand, Strange received a pair of forceps. They shook in his hands. No one saw but him. The urge to hide his hands flickered in his mind, a flash of lightning reflecting off the wall of a dark room. He took a deep breath. He dropped them, but they went up not down. Moving his fingers with shaking grace, he manipulated them, with an invisible hand, over one of a thousand wounds, advising as a doctor went in with a needle and thread.

Nearby, another surgeon approached and relieved Shuri. She stood back and watched, struggling for breath. Like she was drowning.

Working smoothly, Strange handed off his task to someone else, and moved away too. He approached the princess. Standing at her side he towered over her but inclined his head down to speak quietly to her.

“ _You alright_?” Almost whispering, he took her arm. It seemed to be a comfort, but in reality, he was checking her pulse.

She replied quickly, “ _I’m fine_.” Nonchalance spread through her ragged voice. She waved him off and bore a dismissive smile. They both took a step back as the nurse Shuri had sent out returned with a trolley. He wheeled it past them, calling out a list of what he had found.

Shuri translated it to Stephen, speaking straight into his ear. Her voice was dry, cracking. She spoke softly to save it.

They watched. For several moments. It felt like much more than a few minutes. The present surgeons settled into their roles. Together they got Peter’s vital functions to settle. Though they couldn’t find a norm, they found stability. They made little progress stabilising his arm.

The anaesthetist called for extra hands. Then their extra hands started fussing. Then they both became urgent.

Strange noticed. When he looked to Shuri, she was already staring, carefully picking out the conversation. He listened too, but the words were foreign. More voices mixed in, asking unknown questions. “ _Whats happening_?” He asked Shuri directly. Her reaction was delayed.

“He isn’t going under!” One of the doctors shouted franticly across the room.

“We gave him the right dose! I don’t understand!” Another immediately defended, fearful for their patient.

Strange opened his mouth, poised to propose an explanation. But Shuri interjected, snapping back and jogging to the operating table. Leaning over it, she pulled at Peter’s eyes, lighting them with a torch. He turned his head away as she did. She clasped a hand around his chin to keep him still she felt the rasp of the scars on his neck against her wrist as she did. Trying again with the torch, his pupils contracted before the light even hit his retinas. “He must have an advanced metabolism. Use the anaesthetic that counters the effect of the heart-shaped herb, _it might work better_.”

The muscles under her hand clenched. His eyes wheeled around and his arms both twitched. His legs were shifting at the foot of the table. Several hands dashed to keep him still.

“ _It’s alright_.” Shuri soothed, leaning right down next to his ear. She let her curled fingers rest against his neck, her thumb gently touching his cheek. He went still again, ribs flexing to their extreme before settling.

This time she looked to the American doctor. He creased his eyebrows and did nothing else. Behind him Bruce, who hastily looked up, caught her eyes.

“ _What’s the chemical structure of that anaesthetic_?” he asked suddenly, standing as tall as he could, trying to get a better look at the table. The nurses in that room, who had been rushing around like songbirds had all dissipated, into the theatre or out down the hall.

With a swipe of her wrist, Shuri sent it to him. It appeared on his screen and he scrutinised it. She pulled it up in the theatre too, so Strange could have a look. He didn’t expect to feel out of his depth in a hospital of all places.

“My princess, we only have a _small supply_ of that.” An assisting nurse informed. She didn’t respond. She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and gnawed on it.

More advice came from the green giant waiting in the wings “It’ll work but it won’t last long.” He added quickly. His eyes were down. He was leaning over to look closer at the tiny screen in his palm.

She gestured to Peter with her whole arm. “ _You know how this boy works_?”

Bruce still wasn’t looking. Beside him was a man in a red suit. She recognised from her brothers account of one of his exploits. He was helping Bruce scroll through the device in his hand. They exchanged quiet words, and Bruce’s small assistant went fishing in his pockets. His fist returned from their depths with a pair of dainty glasses, which he balanced on Bruce’s nose. He regarded the notes again before answering.

“Not exactly, but I’ve seen cases like this. You’ll need to work fast. _Get in there Scot_.”

The little man jumped and nodded, disappearing from the room.

Shuri turned back to the anaesthetist and the nurse assisting her. “Find what we have and _bring it here_. My brother doesn’t need it right now.” Once more a nurse sprinted from the room, off to follow the urgent errand.

As they left, through the theatre’s double doors, a shiny, spotlessly clean Ant-man appeared, moving in the opposite direction. His back was dead straight, stance wide, arms tense and ready. Standing there he looks prepared and dramatic. When he started walking, he looked like he was suffering from extreme discomfort in his underwear.

Pausing nervously, looking oddly down at his hands, Scot asked, “ _Shouldn’t I clean up again_?”

“That was just for the dirt. Shrinking down should take care of any foreign particles, don’t worry.” Bruce assured, distractedly.

Taking that advice as gospel, Scot vanished in refraction of light, then immediately reappeared. He shot the team a thumbs up. “Ok, I’m _Good to go_.”

Bruce raised an eyebrow but didn’t question it. He took a breath, tearing himself away from his screen.

“Alright everyone, hear me out, I _have a plan_.” He began. Those in the room not focused on anaesthetics, the ones not keeping Peter breathing, turned to listen. With most eyes now on him, Bruce began to summarise. “The tissue’s too damaged to be fully repaired. We can’t use vibranium. But if Scot goes in there with a surgical electrode, he can cauterize the worst of the damage, _buy us some time_.”

Zoning out, contemplating it, Strange nodded. “… _That could work_.” He put a hand to his chin. “He could seal even _small-scale_ perforations.”

“It’d be risky.” Shuri noted from Peters side. Scots suit squeaked as he looked between them. The leather creaked as he raised his hands and took a step back.

“I’m sorry, If I go in there and _DO WHAT_?” He yelled, looking back at Bruce, rotating without turning his body, like a doll being turned in someones hand. “I don’t think I’m qualified for this!” He shouted franticly. His voice got a little caught up in the filters of his respirator.

Strange appeared in front of him. He looked Scot up and down, then side to side, and put a hand on his shoulder. It was easy to see how Scot was hesitant. He even resisted being looked at. Holding him steady, Stephen dropped his voice low. So low only Scot could hear him. “If we don’t close up the damage in his circulatory system, I don’t need to tell you the kind of trouble he’ll be in.” He kept it quick, gauging Scots reaction.

His helmeted head twitched expressively, nervously. His taught posture was squeezed by reluctance. He seemed to be cooking up an excuse. One based on self-deprecation. Whatever it was, Strange didn’t let him finish concocting it.

“It’s true that if we don’t do it right, he could suffer from blood clots and exacerbated bleeding but if we _do nothing_ , he will, _without question_ , die.” He paused. A necessary waste of time. Scot would be turning the idea over in his head. He could see it in the way his eyes darted around through his red visor.

 “We don’t have any other options…” he admitted, once he’d given Scot a good few seconds. “but no one can make you do this. It’s up to you.” Slowly he lifted the tool Scot needed towards him. He held it there patiently. They had a few minutes at most, but the last thing they needed was to rush and make mistakes. _Calm_.

Not much of Strange’s calmness was imparted to Scot, however. A nervous energy compelled him to start fidgeting, bouncing between his heels. He looked over to the table. The princess was stooped over it, not watching him. She was trying to stem a stream of blood trickling from the side of Peter’s neck. All she had were her hands and a bundle of bandages. Behind her, a screen showed layer upon layer of information, forming the shape of a human body. The right side was illuminated by alarms.

On the table itself, Peter’s eyes were open. They twitched inside the sockets. His mouth hung ajar, an oxygen masked fixed over it. His expression was glazed with sweat.

“Scot _please_ …” Banner begged softly behind him, voice wavering through the intercoms. Scot _hated_ that voice. Working with Bruce had been one of the highlights of reappearing in a world which had though he’d died. He was a sweet man. He was so sincere, _all the time_. _And Scot could never say no to that voice_. The tool was plucked daintily from Strange’s hand.

“Ok. _I’ll do it_.” Scot at last agreed. He held the electrode steadily, but unsurely. He gripped it the way one might hold a pair of scissors while running. Strange took up his hand gently, almost tenderly adjusting his fingers, so he held the tool with more respect and delicacy.

The staff surrounding Peter backed out of the way, parting around the operating table as the Ant-man marched over. He ignored the way his underwear had ridden up into unspeakable places. Taking in the scene, noting as much as he could about it, his brain picked out that the red of his suit and the red of Peter’s both stuck out vividly in the light, drab room.

Looking down at the kid’s face it was specked with grey patches, almost translucent in the bright light. You could see blood welling up under the skin, forming bruises. He watched the way Peter’s eyes tracked across the ceiling, finding his visor. It felt like being punched in the jaw. Scots breathing started to shake the respirator of his helmet. With as little movement as possible, he put his hand on the kid’s wrist, ineptly holding it. _He’d punched this kid in the face once_.

“Start hear. There’s a major tear. Internal bleeding. We need to restore the pressure in this artery.” Strange broke into Scot’s loud thinking, pointing out a gash down Peters bicep. Again, he started bobbing, up and down, swapping the electrode between his hands, holding it how strange had shown. Nodding, assuring himself, dropping the tool in his left hand, readying his thumb over the trigger on his right.

“Ok kid, this might tickle a little!” He warned, stepping up and shrinking down. He could barely be seen. Darting across the charred remnants of Peters skin, leaping over torrents of sticky wet blood. He stopped and waved at the observing crowed, giving a thumbs up before he vanished between the cracks.


	5. The waiting

Night was approaching slowly. There was no sun in the sky, but it’s blue was still bright and empty of clouds. Steadily it was growing darker. The air was growing cooler. The wind was gentle, barley rustling the trees. The sounds of birds and bugs were a rich ambience. In some places, such subtleties could even be heard. Through all the streets of the golden city, the noise of man had been growing. In the late afternoon, the first people had stepped from their homes, searching for others. Now, as the day waned, the city was flooded with motion and sound.

Hundreds of thousands of people. Songs and laughter. Bright colours and lights. Joy and tears. The noise of it all was all around.

However, the sounds of celebration were not equally vibrant with ever part of the city. The air was muted, still but fresh and mild, within the enclosed walls of the hospital.

 There was bustling, but it was tired. The quiet rushing of feet about their work. A long day was coming to an end. The light in the wards was fading with the day. A kind copy, to set those bound there for the night to rest, drawing in sleep. So close to such soft serenity, a spark of tension.

Tony was pacing. Had been for some time. Drifting between thoughts and between two columns in the minimally decorated corridor. He had both hands in his pockets. His eyes tracked the lines in the floor. His back was slightly stooped.

He couldn’t see the hallway, as different as it was to every hospital he had been in. He was inside his own head. The colours of the walls passed as blurs of colour. He couldn’t hear the people nearby, talking in rooms, hurrying passed, more shapes out of focus. It may as well have been silent. The smell remained. He couldn’t chase it away. If stalked close behind him as he walked back and forth. That too clean smell, with a hint of latex and chlorine. It was the same smell that had wafted out of the medical packet nebula had cracked open many years ago, even when he protested to her poking around his injuries. It was the same as the day he and Pepper had rushed in to have baby Morgan delivered. Hospital smells must be universal. He had been pacing then, when they’d had to take Pep in for surgery. His head darted between memories like this. Anecdotes and half-useful stories. Then moments later he would be in another sphere of his mind entirely. And then he would change again.

Time passes slowly when your mind moves fast, Tony had found. One month on a ship, stranded in the void had felt like years. Three months in a cave in god knows where had felt like decades.  Five years in a little cottage by a lake with the love of his life could have been forever. But he wasn’t sure if he could have lived with the weight of half the universe suspended over him _forever_. Especially not now. Not now he knew the feeling. _The feeling of getting it all back_. Or, _most of it_. He kept his mind in other places. Kept the _fear_ from clawing its way back. His heart had finaly calmed. He needed to _breath_.

“Have you ever tried _meditating_?” The voice threw a wrench into the winding motors in Tony’s brain. He knew it well, and yet he didn’t. He knew who it was, in an instant, but it still put a little electricity through his chest to hear that voice. He turned on the spot to face the farmiliar as Steven Strange strode down the hall in long, slow steps. A cold feeling flooded over him, wafting down the hall. His voice was even and relaxed. Almost playful. He let himself breath out. _Could it be relief?_

“ _Once_.” He replied and moved to meet the wizard as he approached. He was missing his signature cape, but still looked dashingly bizare without it. Tony noticed Strange’s silhouette was much sleeker without it, and on a separate note he jumped to the witty conclusion that the cape was probably in a cloakroom or going through the laundry. The brief humour of it warmed his expression.

“It’s not for me. Can’t stand _sitting still_.” He considered this flaw even as he admitted it allowed. They stepped up to one another, a comfortable distance between. A healthy few feet. Stark considered the doctor for a moment, previous thoughts returning. Strange returned the gesture, watching Tony’s eyes. Tony thought about the heartbeat monitor he could hear in the room across the hall. It was no one he knew. He made himself jump back to the matter at hand.

“I’m not sure what the protocol is here. _Do we hug? Shake hands?_ ” Tony asked as innocently as his personality would allow. He couldn’t help the quirk of an eyebrow as he gesticulated appropriately.

“I’d say we should keep this professional.” Stephen replied, lifting a hand to suggest distance was reasonable. His voice was rather cool, but something calm cut through it. It came out like he was trying to keep from chuckling.

“ _Really,_ ‘ _cause I feel like a hug_.” Tony admitted, already moving to take one. Strange’s protest was mild, almost non-existent. A disapproving shake of his head betrayed by a smile. He returned the hold. Tony held it a few seconds longer than he had expected it to last. Their chests were flush together and the arms holding Strange were strong. It was hardly _professional_. It was intimate if anything. Far be it for Tony Stark to show restraint.

“You alright, _Tony_?” Stephen leaned away, just enough to see the side of Stark’s face. The other suddenly released him, absently adjusting his hair and checking his watch at the same time.

“ _Yeah_.” He hastily answered. He sniffed and looked anywhere but Stephen’s face for a good few moments. A warm fondness held Stephens heart. _He had watched this man die_ , a part of him recalled. He had watched him die a _thousand, thousand times_. But he hadn’t seen this. He hadn’t seen the victory they had stumbled across.

“What’s his condition like?” Tony asked suddenly. There was something far _too_ _professional_ in the tone. Something forced. The doctor in Stephen pushed to the front of his mind.

“We did the best we could. Most of the bleeding has stopped, we’ve seen to most of the problem areas for clotting. But…” Steven stopped. Monitoring the situation. Tony wouldn’t meet his eyes. He just waited. He realised too late that he had jumped right into the thick of it. “… _Right now_ , he’s still in triage.” The addition was easy to say. He’d said it countless times. The situation was fresh in his memory, each facet of it set out and diligently document. Though he dropped his tone sympathetically, he kept himself collected. His pragmatic nature did not reflect in Tony, who said nothing. He dropped his face into one hand, the other crossed over his chest.

Strange was certain now that he had taken the _wrong approach_. He could almost feel the warmth leaving Tony’s face. Watching him straining to measure his distress, trying to find a gag or a quip in the moment to lessen it.

Some sympathetic strand in Stephen’s heart began lamenting the fact that he still had _worse news to impart_.

The last time he had seen Tony, many hours ago, he had looked half dead. Now he looked almost healthy. _Wakandan medicine was a wonder,_ he thought. Had he still been deep in the medical field, he would likely have tried bargaining for some of it. It was a shame so _little of it had worked on Peter_.

He had parted from the boy’s side for a multitude of selfish reasons. The weight of them all had finaly added up to enough to drag him away. The time stone was still in jeopardy _. A_ time stone, at any rate. More than that, he was _tired_. A whole day on his feet, no rest and little food. His legs ached from it. Right now, _a little meditation_ didn’t sound like a bad idea. He wasn’t entirely devoid of caring, however. So, he had forced himself to happen across Tony, so he could share what little news he had. But he had to make it quick. Back there, in intensive care, Peter’s life was still balancing on the blade of a scalpel, depending on what they could do in the next operation. And he _would be there for it_. If Peter made it that far…

Across from him, Tony had been consumed by a murky silence. He didn’t seem to be thinking at all. Feeling, bright or dark, darted across the insides of his eyes. Even the ones in Strange’s head seemed to be pulled away from him, into the void. It drew his attention but stripped him of any notion of what to say. He felt an uneasy pity rising in his insides. It was worsened by the surprising quiet of the hallway.

In any other hospital, anywhere around the world, this place would be bustling. Hundreds of people suddenly returned to life. How many had been in cars, on roads? How many had been in planes? How many had been in hospital already? Had Wakandans, Asguardians and aliens of all kinds who had been rushed here for treatment? None of them where here right now.

Serenity was something he knew. Kamar-Taj had been the most peaceful place on earth. Even when the apprentices were training. At night, even the air was still. But this was different. It was too quiet. _To calm_. Yet there was _so much_ _here_. Perhaps it was the familiarity of the setting, which was so warped, so different from everything he knew. Someone was talking somewhere down the hall. It was like listening to a ghost.

Tony wouldn’t look him in the eyes. The words on the tip of his tongue were tormenting him. He found himself bristling with pity. He kept trying to find Tony’s gaze. A simple human gesture. There was something he wanted to impart, that words couldn’t say.

“We’re thinking the best we can do right now is probably _palliative care_ …” He concluded, unable to make any meaningful contact. Sympathetic tones cut into his typically neutral prognosis. The soft noises of the hospital were so delicate, the weight of his voice was somewhat mocked. Tony’s eyes shone hollowly for a second. _Dull the pain before the end_.

The vitality drained from his eyes. He moved to lean against a wall. His legs trembled from the sudden cessation of his aimless, repetitive walking. His form stayed strong even as his face paled.

 “At least, that’s the approach the _surgical team_ is taking.” Strange tried, something to lessen the blow. Perhaps if helped. Most likely it didn’t. It got no reaction. He stepped over towards him, staying close, ready to catch him, should he fall.

“Do you concur with that? _Doctor_?” Tony asked in a voice which was losing traction on his vocal cords. He rested his head, with a soft thud, against the coolness of the wall. There was little faith in his voice. A harsh touch of ridicule. _He looked so tired_. Stephen let it slide. His hands ached, down to the bone, and he wanted to end this now and find a bed of his own. But the least he owed Tony was _this_.

“The best we can do right now is keep him comfortable. _Keep him going_. _Unfortunately_ , that’s the most we can do.” He feebly answered, with all the courtesy and confidence he could muster.

Tony stepped into motion again. He went back to pacing, this time back and forth across the hall. Stephen interrupted him, catching his arm. He tenderly put his hand on Tony’s shoulder, firmly.

“I think he’s going to be _alright_ , Tony.” Steven assured, kindness edging in on his voice. As Tony settled, he relinquished his grip.

A cruel little smirk cracked over his face. “What, _you see that in your crystal ball or something_?” He joked, as the small prickling of tears in his eyes wasn’t there. It was such a horrible feeling that even thinking on it made his eyes sting.

“No. I’m just hoping for the best.” Boldly, Strange stated. He added some arrogance. Maybe Tony could have some faith in _him_.

If he did, it wasn’t evident. He only scoffed, but it was so pathetic and half-hearted it sounded like a cough. His fingers were twitching against his arm. His dark eyes were floating aimlessly around one patch of the floor. His expression was hard to read.

Strange could see something in Tony’s face. Something in the way he rubbed his fingers together. Something in the way he kept staring at the floor. The hopelessness that started sprouting out from under denial. _The family of the infirmed_. He’d seen it a hundred times before. The absence of such daunted feeling from his life must have made them more potent. Or that was what Strange told himself, keeping a close eye on his friend. Then again, maybe it had always been that bad, but he had never brought himself to think on it. To think on the desperation. _A father willing to tear out his own heart to save his child_. Analysing the situation, there was something he could draw from that expression. It drew a very specific vision from his mind. _A memory which hadn’t happened_.

“…You think it should have been you…” was his objective conclusion.

This raised no reaction from Tony. His eyes stayed turned to the ground, his arms stayed crossed over his chest. Yet, a calmness came over him. It washed in with a gentle smile. He nodded, an absent motion, biting at the inside of his lip, breathing out deeply. Then spoke in a voice scarcely above a whisper.

“… _I think it_ _should have been me_ …”

It was always other people that got hurt, not him. The same memory kept circling in his head. _And if you died… I feel like that’s on me_. Now he’d opened the pandoras box of guilt that he’d been so diligently swerving around. The guilt pooled in his eyes.

Strange too was taking up by his emotions. Like standing waist deep in a rushing river, he knew how to stay standing. Thoughts swam passed like fish.  A man who’d faced the end of the universe with hot determination and not shed one tear in the awful moments when they had lost it all. _The last he had seen of Tony before he had vanished_. There had been pain on his face, and shame. But no tears. With this memory and the view before him, Strange felt like it was challenging some bizare idea that Tony couldn’t cry. _Of course he could cry. He was only human._

He graced Tony’s shoulder with his hand, letting it slide off like water down a window. This interaction was too many things tangled into one. Friendship and comradery. Professional courtesy and bad news. He wasn’t sure which _route to take_. Was compassion needed or was clarity? Persuasion or assurance? He certainly wasn’t going to tell Tony he was right. Yet, if there were words he could say to change his mind, Strange didn’t know them. He realised, however and very fortunately, he didn’t need to know them. _Someone else did_.

“Well, I think I know someone who’d _disagree_.” He stated, quietly confident. _Very_ confident, in fact.

The melancholy had pulled Tony inward again, and he said nothing. A few stubborn, harsh notions kept spiralling around, tying him up in knots. He watched Stephen _,_ absently observing, from the corner of his mind. He heard him speak. Then he registered it. Then the meaning of the words caught up. Strange was already walking away. _He was limping_. Tony winced. He opened his mouth, the urge to call out reaching down his throat. He couldn’t find the energy to press the words out of his lungs.

Behind him, an antithesis to Stephen’s exit, someone was approaching. The gentle padding of feet. Heel toe, heel toe. He could recognise the pattern. He could recognise the person by just the way they walked, the sound of their shoes on the ceramic tiles.

With stilted steps, he turned. The metallic shimmer of her bright, red hair and the sleek curve over her smiling mouth. The glistening of tears in her eyes. _Pepper Potts_. She was wearing a pair of jeans and one of his old, baggy shirts. He hair was done up lazily at the back of her head. There was a small cut across her lip. In that moment, there was nothing Tony could do to keep his eyes from flooding with tears. They drew each other as close as possible. Each held the other tight, ringing the fabric of each other’s clothes with tender hands.

The moment of fierce affection eased. Muscles relaxed and tensions were relieved. But their hold was maintained. In the middle of the hallway, they set like that, saying nothing. The quiet was softly broken by the faintest weeping.

Time passed in unperceivable increments. It could have been minutes. It could have been hours. All Tony knew for certain was that _she_ was in his arms. Pepper was in his arms and he was in hers. She had one hand on his head, taming his frazzled hair. The other was on his back, fingers tracing a tiny circle.

By the time they parted, the calm Tony had slaved to create for himself over the past few hours had returned. It was brighter and stronger than he ever could have made it alone. All the worry’s in the world had stopped. _They were back home, having some peace and quiet_. _Alone together_. _The creak of the trees in the wind and the lapping of water at the lakes edge_.

“Did you go home?” He asked her, while the memories were fresh and happy in his mind. His hands stayed on her, holding her near. That’s where she stayed, at his unspoken request. Slowly his fingers transitioned to stroking up and down her arm. Her skin was soft, but the texture changed where it bore bruises. He kept his touch light there.

“Yeah…” She sniffed and wiped a tiny tear from her eye. “For a little while… a _few hours_.” Then she looked back into his, while they still glimmered with light. “I needed to make sure... everything was _ok_.” She sounded almost casual. “Then I… got a flight out here… a few of us did…” For anyone else the ocean spanning journey would have been a big deal. Pepper made it sound like small talk. Still, each sentence was taken without hurry. One word at a time.

Her voice guided him where it always did. Peaceful thoughts. The embodiment of _Home_. Their home by the lake. Their quaint little home and the _most important thing_ about it.

“How’s Morgan?” He asked. He tucked his grip around her arms and drew her closer again. He could feel Pepper’s ribs moving, where his chest pressed against hers. He savoured each of her breaths, more preciously than his own.

Her eyes were turned to the ceiling, then came back to him. “ _She misses her Daddy_.” She guilted lightly, letting hands rest on his shoulders. One moved to stroke the back of his neck.

Tony sighed, his eyes rolling briefly away as he pictured that _little smile_. He leaned his forehead into Pepper’s shoulder. She took the opportunity to smooth the hair on the back of his head.

“I _miss her too_ …” A strangled smile slid onto his face. He squeezed his eyes shut and tucked them against Pepper, blocking out all possible light. Less interference to distort the precious images in his head. His only distraction was the lightest kiss his wife laid on his temple.

 “ _So,_ ” She began. He felt her lips skim across his cheek. They funnelled her voice into one ear. She traced the edges of his sideburn, which was growing out of its usual borders. “When will you be coming home?” There was no insistence, or ulterior motive. Though perhaps there was a reminder.

 _When_ really was the question. _What day was it?_ _When had he left home?_ It hadn't been long since they’d arrived _here_ , _had it?_ He could visualise a hundred moving parts at once, but he couldn’t remember a date. Keeping track of time was never his forte. _When had they started planning the time heist?_ He could have used that as a frame of reffrence, if he knew when they’d started… _and how long they’d worked on it…_

Counting back by sunlight and darkness, because sleep had never been a consistent occurrence. It came out to about 6? _Or 10_? _It felt like 6_. _Very vaguely_.

Then the mission. _They were gone only 5 seconds_. _That was no help_.

After that, there was… _hell. Just hell_.

And now they were here. _How long had he been out?_ Steve was gone when he came to, as were all his injuries. He’d been left to his own devices but restricted to a ward. There were no clocks on any of the walls, it was infuriating. Maybe he just hadn’t looked in the _right place_. He couldn’t even be sure that he’d _looked_. Technicaly he should still be there now. But he couldn’t _stand it_. All he could think about was Peter. Peter and the countless others they’d forced into _another_ fight. The kid was without doubt laid up in a bed, somewhere in this building. On the very edge of life.

_How long would he be like that?_

“I’ve gota be here for _the kid_ , Pep.” He said, suddenly feeling the need to argue for it. Half his heart believed it was too selfish an excuse. Pepper simply cupped his face, caressing his cheek with a thumb, as if to wipe away the sour sadness on his face. In return, she only smiled. Not so much as a waver of disappointment passed over her face.

“He isn’t alone here Tony-” She tried to assure.

“- I know-” He rebuked her soothing notions, fighting off a biting guilt in his head. The thought of other, faceless people being left to take care of _his_ kid.

“ _It’s going to be ok_.” She pulled back. The sudden departure of the warmth made him want to chase after it. She was looking into his eyes. They were dark and soft. It made her heart twinge a little, how they were red around the edges. She caressed the side of his face. His skin was dry, peeling a little.

Her voice, her gentle hand, made something warm stick in Tony’s chest. Pepper could tell him he was bulletproof, and he would _believe her_. And yet…

The feelings dredged up by Strange were still fresh in his head. Resting beneath the water that Pepper had helped to settle. They were swimming around him like sharks. _Triage. Palliative care_. _Would he be alright_? The duality of it all. It felt like it would all come down like a coin flip. Heads or tails. _Life or death_.

The cogs in his head seemed to stall. No solutions seemed to push themselves forward. The conversation reached an impasse. But the silence didn’t last.

He could see her, asking him _what was wrong_. Her lips didn’t move. Tempted out by her eyes alone, a confection slipped through his mouth.

“ _I almost lost him again_ …” His voice was barely a whisper. A tightness settled in his chest. Right in the middle, a recurring hollowness.

“ _Tony_ …” Sensitive and sympathetic, her concern pried at his conscience. He hardly hesitated, elaborating on his train of thought. He held her tightly where his hands found her arms, as if she was the only thing keeping everything from slipping away.

“First we lost Nat… The whole _compound_ …” He released a strangled breath. He was almost remiss to take in more air. “ _Nat_ …” He repeated. He could picture what she’d think of him, if she could see him. But he couldn’t hear her mocking him for dwelling. He could only see her, in the corner of his mind. She was like an outline. Her red hair and black clothes. Features blurred into nothing. A new kind of guilt surfaced.

He never thought he could trust someone _like that_. Someone who’s whole deal was dishonesty. But after the snap, while the disparate pieces of the team had been barley functioning, barely able to pull a plan together, Natasha had been a rock. Esspecialy for him. Though they’d barley talked, she would take time to call, every now and then. And when Scot had reappeared and they’d all come together again she was the only one he could bring himself to talk to one on one. With everyone else there was too much _guilt_. She was someone he could bounce ideas off of and actually expect them to return un-mangled. _She’d always been like that_. There was no one more reliable.

 _And now she was gone_ , the thought caught up to him miserably. The calm began _cracking_ again. The real world started flooding in. _The kid was going to die too_ , his brain self loathingly reminded him. Mentaly he scolded himself, as if that would chase away the aching. Contempt rode across his features. It vanished when, so close to him, Pepper’s expression was torn by concern.

She took his face in her hand, pulling his stare to hers. She gazed deeply, beyond his eyes, Studying his deepest thoughts. “ _Tony_ …. You did _everything_ you could.”

The gears in Tony’s mind that Pepper had put to rest began turning again. _Everything he could have done_. He could work over every scenario a hundred times and never find the perfect solution. He found faults in each and every one.

_If they’d waited for Carol to get back before starting. They had been in such a rush. He’d let them rush…_

_If they’d picked a different point in time to find the soul stone… But there wasn’t another time, was there?_

_If he had shut off the machine, or destroyed it…_

_If he had just talked to Nebula when they’d gotten back…_

_If he had known Peter was coming, he could have stalled for time… They could have backed each other up._

These ideas, all self-damning, began backing up in his head. A gentle but tightening grip on his hand pulled him free from the wreck his train of thought was about to become.

Pepper’s serene eye’s prised more truth from his heart. He gazed into them. Like looking over the sea at sunset, during a storm. Deep, dark blue, flecks of grey catching the light.

In turn, she watched him. She watched his eyes begin to shine, dampness gathering in the corners. She watched a feeling form as his chest filled with breath. A feeling that wanted to be aired.

 “I did all of this because _I wanted_ …” He let himself trail off as she pulled him close again. The sentence went unfinished. Wanted to hear him again. Wanted to see him, moving, breathing. _Wanted him to be more than a memory in a picture frame._

“ _I know, Tony_ …” Pepper filled the silence when Tony couldn’t find the words. She let him nestle his face in her shoulder. The perfume she was wearing was so sweet. He could picture the bottle it came from, sitting on the counter in their bathroom at home. It was peach coloured, tucked next to his own aftershave.

 “ _Natasha knew what she was doing_ …” She soothed, allowing a moment, waiting for the tenseness in his body to dissipate. When it stayed, rooted in him, she leaned back, stepping away, holding him by the shoulders. Her grip would have rivalled even captain Rogers. “ _The kid_ knew what he was doing.” She added, conclusively.

Criticism came to mind first. As plans went _it had been poorly thought out,_ Tony tried to reason. The situation looked so simple in retrospect. Simpler that it had looked at the time. The solution was easy. _It should have been me_. _If I could have gotten my hands on the gauntlet. Gotten my hands on the stones. They could still have won_.

But they wouldn’t have won. They would have lost. _Until Peter arrived_.

He still wanted to think of Peter as some little kid. Worried about homework and embarrassing himself. Clumsy and a bit clueless at times. But _they’d been through this_. _Peter could handle himself_. He and Spiderman were one. The kid was much sharper than he gave him credit for.

Putting on the gauntlet. _Using it_. It hadn’t been an accident. He had done it on purpose, with that unshakable intent Peter approached everything with. Even if Tony had had the chance to try and talk him out of it, he wasn’t sure if he could _ever_ have gotten Peter to listen.

He gave Pepper the faintest nod, the reassuring thought _He knew what he was doing_ echoing in his head. The reassurance did not diminish the severity of Peters action’s. How narrowly he was clinging to the precipice of living. _He was sat on deaths doorstep_.

“I’ve got to _stay_ Pep…”  Some of Tony’s confidence was restored. He roughly ended the tickling of a tear, catching it on the side of his finger. Pepper caught the ones in his other eye more gently, wiping them away with a thumb. “I can help out here… do _something_ …” He stated softly, as his argument. It was weak, doubtful, but he would change that.

Once more his mind was turning with ideas. _Helpful ones_. Focused on the final outcome, not that path that had brought them here. Steps towards a better ending. Pepper watched them springing to life behind his eyes and smiled. She nodded, defeated by his gentle stubbornness, not for the first time.

“ _Well you know where we’ll be_.” She said, quietly giving her blessing. The smallest touch of disappointment drowned out by heavy measures of pride and love. She took up his hand in one of hers. He held it in return, grip as soft as possible. With his other hand he absently stroked her arm, admiring the pale freckles there. Admiring the bruises she wore so bravely.

“Tell Morgan I love her… just… with _all my heart_ …” Tony uttered as his face and heart wrung with unconditional love. Her little smile lit up inside his head once more. He blinked hard, to keep more tears from forming.

Pepper nodded and he placed a sweet, chaste kiss on her cheek, taking her up in his arms once more. He really could have held onto her _forever_. In that moment though, he could almost feel a countdown to the end. _The end of what?_ Something very important, _apparently_. He took deep breaths, in and out. The feeling ebbed, barely.

He tucked his nose into the crook of Peppers neck, caressing her soft skin.

“I love you, _Mrs Potts_.” He confessed, truthful in each note.

“ _I love you_.” She echoed, from the depths of her heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter may take 2 weeks again, but I will try to keep it at a week... I want to be consistent, I swear...


End file.
